


Isabelle of Arkham

by Harlequinade



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham Asylum (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Drama, Female Anti-Hero, Gen, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Pre-Arkham City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:50:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1844953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harlequinade/pseuds/Harlequinade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arkham City SPOILERS - There's never going to be enough Rogues. Batman will always be around to stop them. That doesn't mean I can't try though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Day I Remembered

People think that Arkham City is a place for the criminally insane, or just plain criminal. But how old do you have to be, and how do you qualify for being incarcerated here? Do you have to kill someone? Do you have to be legally an adult? Do you have to have a certificate that says “certified insane”? If any of that’s true, then I don’t belong here. I’ve never killed anyone; I’ve never gotten the certificate, and I’m not a legal adult. I’m sixteen. Weeks. Let me explain.  
My earliest memory is right after Dad gave me my first USB flash drive – I know, it sounds crazy, but just listen. It was programmed with everything I would ever need to know about my family history, but because before that I didn’t have anywhere to store any data, I couldn’t remember what had happened to me before that point.  
It could hold over 1,000 Gigabytes of memory, making it perfect for my first month of exploring my neighborhood. Dad would have to make me another flash drive after that. And just for those of you who are wondering, the multiple USB ports are at the base of my head, just below the hairline. The USB ports are inside little tunnels, deep enough that they aren’t noticeable and don’t get in my way.  
That’s when I understood. Dad was Dad, or Victor Fries; some people call him Mr. Freeze, which is ironic because you pronounce them exactly the same. Anyway, Dad was trying to keep Mom, or Nora Fries from dying from a fatal disease, when he found out she was pregnant. To save her, and hopefully the baby, he froze them. Unfortunately, the baby didn’t survive.  
For years now, he’s tried and failed to take Mom’s and his DNA and make a clone, another child, for them. I could see all my siblings, the ones who came before me and didn’t survive. They were all programmed with personalities, so I suppose mine is programmed as well, but now, with all I’ve experienced, the programming is basically just a base for what I’m like now.  
There’s Drake, who only survived ten weeks, looked about to be ten when he died. He was cocky, arrogant, and brilliant.  
There’s my oldest sister, Chloe, who was beautiful, rather smart, but not nearly as much as Drake, and a really good singer. She was twelve weeks old when she died.  
Then my closest brother, well, when it comes to age, Pierre, who was very talented with musical instruments, kind, and thoughtful. He was fourteen weeks when he perished.  
I’m the first one to make to the age Dad wanted, he must have learned from all the others, but there was something else: I could store different memories and skills underneath files that could open when I speak their names. Since if I spoke in English and also saved all the files under English words, I would keep opening them accidentally in conversations. Instead, Dad had programmed me being able to speak French fluently, since Mom had studied French and loved the culture so much. That was what I would save memories under, French words.  
And now I know who I really am. I’m Isabelle Fries, daughter of Mr. Freeze, the memory bank. I’ll remember everything I’ve ever seen or read, like as if it was preserved, like as if it was preserved in ice.


	2. My First Day

The first day after my memory was given to me, I watched as many martial art and self-defense videos as he could get online. Somehow, my dad had managed to either hack the security in here, or the Internet was there for anyone who could access it.  
Anyway, by the end of the afternoon, I knew how to flip a grown man, how to knock someone out with one blow, and I even knew how to stick a landing from as much as twenty feet up and from as far away as ten feet, if I was jumping across something. However, I was inexperienced and did not think through my decisions before making them (something that can get me in trouble).  
Dad thought I had learned enough by that point and even let me explore around our home, which was ironically a police station. Go figure. But before that, he gave me something special. Okay two things, but they were pretty damn cool.  
First, he spoke one word to me: “Bonjour.” Instantly, the brightly lit police lab was overlaid with a scanner, naming everything I focused on. “I thought this would come in handy when you need to figure out what something is.” He explained. “If you say au revoir, it will shut down. If you need to see where you are, just say où, which means, ‘where’.”   
“I know what it means, Dad, remember?” I was slightly annoyed at him for not remembering, but this was pretty darn sweet that he had somehow fit a computer screen or something inside my eye. While this might have disturbed some people, I was thrilled. Hey, I have a computer for a brain! Don’t judge me!  
After this, he crossed over to a cabinet, which I think might have once been an evidence locker or something, and pulled out a worn, black leather jacket. “This was mine when you mother and I first met.” He explained. “I gave it to her to wear on our first date. She kept it ever since. I’d like you to have it.”   
“You’re… giving this to me?” I touched the jacket softly, running my hands over the cracked and faded leather. I looked up at his face. He looked completely emotionless, but completely serious about giving me this important piece of him.   
I rushed forward and gave him a hug, even though he was wearing his exo-suit and he couldn’t feel my gesture of gratitude.  
The cold metal felt good on my bare skin, and I felt him awkwardly placing the jacket around my bare shoulders. Since I’d just been exercising, I was wearing a tank top because I had gotten rather hot and was sweating. And don’t ask me where Dad was able to find woman’s clothes in a place like this, because I really don’t want to know.  
“It’ll be cold outside, and it’s only going to get colder, so I want you back before ten.”  
I wanted to protest that I wasn’t cold, but then I looked at the thermometer in the corner. It read two degrees below zero. Maybe Dad’s DNA made me like colder temperatures more, but I slipped on the jacket and stepped into the woman’s restroom before heading out.  
I had never seen what I looked like before, so I looked carefully. A pale, very light blonde girl stared back at me, with ice blue eyes. On a whim, I spoke out. “Bonjour.” The entire room turned a subtle blue, but I could still tell that my eyes had turned solid, electric blue, no pupils, no irises, no nothing. There was a broad blue band around the mirror that read, “MIRROR”. Since I had kinda figured that out already, I spoke the shut down phrase.  
It was only my second day actually living, and I was going to make the most of it.

By the time I made it outside, the sky was covered with dark clouds, and snow was falling gently. I looked around; looking for a suitable building (about ten, fifteen stories). I wasn’t going to jump off of it, but I did want to see my surroundings.   
Finally, I spotted an apartment building that would serve my purposes. It was decorated with gargoyles that had their wings spread like dark angels protecting the evil from the light. Spotlights danced like flames around the battered and grimy building, illuminating the shadows and dark angels for brief moments before letting the curtain of darkness fall back into place.  
The fire escape was conveniently located only around the corner of the building, and the first rung was within jumping distance. I don’t know how Dad did it, but I was in peak physical condition, for what my age would be if I were a normal kid.  
I wasn’t even winded by the time I made it to the top of the building. The first thing that caught my notice was a billboard saying, “YOU ARE UNDER CLOSE SURVEILLENCE” My first reaction was “Really? Cool!” I waved at the billboard, hoping to cause some confusion as why a teenager was in Arkham City in the first place, and why they weren’t screaming and losing their minds. “Maybe I’ve already lost mine.” That thought didn’t frighten me in the slightest, mostly because my Dad was supposed to be insane, so why shouldn’t I?  
The funny thoughts in my mind were cut short as I heard someone screaming in pain and agony. Looking down into the alley below me, I could see a group of tough-looking guys beating up on a weak, scrawny looking fella. Probably one of the political prisoners. At first, I ignored him.   
I looked up at the night sky where stars peaked through the carpeted sky, filed with smoke, clouds, and smog from the city. Sirens rang all through out the city, showing how many of the criminals were disobeying the TYGER officers (I had already seen a bunch of them moving around in the city and seen their vehicles moving around freely within the walls).  
A thump from below and a painful gasp made me look down in annoyance. Couldn’t they just take their business elsewhere? Obviously, I would have to make them.  
Looking around, I spotted a lead pipe just sitting against the low wall around the edge of the roof. I took it, and almost went to the fire escape when I realized I still had Mom’s jacket on. I took it off, folded it carefully, then set it where I had found the lead pipe.  
Then I made my way as quickly down the fire escape as I could, landing on the ground with a small thud.  
Running around the side of the building, I could tell that they had almost beaten the unfortunate guy into unconsciousness. I felt like I should be scared, but I really wasn’t. I knew I could take these guys, especially now that I had a lead pipe.   
“Hey!” I shouted as loud as I could. Which was rather unimpressive. Maybe I should have considered training my voice before this. Oh, well, I made a mental note to check it out later. Since I didn’t have enough of anything to put in files yet, the fighting I learned was right there, in the forefront of my mind.  
The three guys turned to look at me. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I continued. They looked at each other, then the big brute that seemed to be their leader, smiled a smile that seemed to missing about half his teeth. In a voice that was about as pleasant to the ears as a bullfrog’s, he asked, “And what does a pretty flower like you have interest in scum like him?” He kicked the small guy in the ribs, causing him to curl up even tighter.  
“Let’s just say I have a problem with bullies.” I retorted, lifting up my pipe. “Now, are you going to leave, or am I going to have to hurt you?” The big guy stared at me, then began laughing and laughing, like I was the funniest joke since ‘when did the chicken cross the road’.   
When he saw that I was serious, he nodded to one of the other guys, who wasn’t quite as big as he was, but still pretty intimidating. “Tats.” Apparently, this guy, Tats, which was probably a nickname for all the tattoos he had, was the least experienced in the group. He came at me like a bull, all strength, but zero quickness. I, only the other hand, excel at being quick.   
He threw a hard right jab. I ducked, and swung at him with the lead pipe. It made a ringing sound when it connected, and Tats staggered away, dazed, but still on his feet. While he was trying to shake it off, I ran at him, giving him another knock that laid him out cold.  
About that time, I got hit on the side of the head by a fist, which hurts even more then when you try to stand up and forget you’re underneath a table or a desk. I saw stars, but when I saw the other fist coming at me, I did what any person would do. I ducked out of the way, feeling it whistle by my ear. While my attacker was off balance, I scurried away, out of reach.   
It turned out that Big Brute had stuck his other friend in there right before I’d taken out Tats. How rude! Now he was staring at me, waiting for me to make the first move. I was counting on the fact that he was as slow and stupid as the other guy, and ran straight at him, making him think I was going to hit him in the head, before stooping low and going for the feet.   
Now, there’s a huge difference from knowing how to do this move, and being able to pull it off. My foot hit his ankle, but I wasn’t prepared for how much effort it actually takes to take his feet out from under him. I kicked again at his ankle, but I wasn’t strong enough to do anything. When I figured out he wasn’t going down from that one little hit, I changed strategy, and hit him in the knee with my pipe. The guy howled and went down. It only took one blow to settle his silence for a good long while.  
I looked up to see Big Brute just kind of staring at me, as if he was amazed that a sixteen-year-old girl could take down his crew (that’s the age I was supposed to look, and besides, a sixteen-week-old clone? Who even think of that unless I told them?). He shook off his amazement and smiled his crooked grin again. “Very impressive, sweetheart, but who still have to deal with me.”  
“Bring it on!” I retorted, then decided I might want to make him angry. An angry opponent means that they can’t focus. “If you’re as stupid as these two, I’ll go home and get my little brother. It’ll be more of a fair fight then!”  
I’m pretty sure that made him mad, but I wasn’t prepared for how good he was. Before I knew it, he was holding onto my hair, which was long enough that he had quite a good grip. He was holding a knife to my throat, and was whispering in my ear, telling me things I won’t repeat. What I will say is, I wish there was a way to delete that memory.  
Then, suddenly, he yelled. I took the momentary distraction, elbowed him in the gut, and scrambled away. I grabbed my pipe, and, looking around, realized that it was that guy that they were beating up. He’d found a sack somewhere and pulled it over Brute’s head. I went up to him and hit him, again and again, even after I knew he was unconscious, until the scrawny guy put his hand on my shoulder, making me whirl around with the pipe held high.  
“Whoa, whoa, berserk-o girl!” He held up his hands. “I think you can stop beating him now, he’s down for the count.”  
I lowered the pipe, but still gripped it tightly, ready in case anyone else tries to sneak up on me.   
The boy – he couldn’t have been older than nineteen – rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, then winced. “I guess I should – Ow! I guess I should thank you for the save. What’s your name?”  
I hesitated for a minute – I really didn’t want to tell him that I was Freeze’s daughter. Either he’d back away slowly, thinking I was crazy (I probably am, but that doesn’t mean I want anyone to know.), or he would run away screaming. Being friends with the daughter of a member of the Rogues gallery is not something many people would really jump at the chance for.  
After a moment, “Ice.” I replied. It was a name that I thought would work great if I didn’t want some body to know who I really was. It completely slipped my mind that Mr. Freeze could be easily associated with that name.  
“Ice?” He looked surprised. “Did your parents give you that name?”  
“No.” I didn’t give any more explanation, but looked down at the thugs more closely. Since most of the inmates were either pressed or willingly joined one of the Rogues or another. But not Dad. He thought they were idiots and had no use for them. We were a solo act.  
I stood up, and turned to the boy. “These were some of Penguin’s crew. We’ve got to leave. Now. They were scouts, which means that somebody’s waiting for them.”  
I turned around and strode away without waiting for him. He followed me closely, stumbling a bit. “How did you know they were scouts?”   
I rolled my eyes, even though I knew he couldn’t see me do it. “How long have you been here?”  
“A couple weeks now, why?”  
“Then you should know this!” I snapped. Honestly, how had he survived this long? “The goons from Two-Face have their uniforms half gray and half black! Joker’s people wear clown make-up! And the Riddler’s people are double agents! The Penguin’s folks are just that! Thugs! They don’t dress up as anything, but they’re as ruthless as the rest! Now come on, if you want to live.”


	3. Meeting My Sister

The run towards the steel mill was long, and it only made it worse that I had to stop for long periods of time waiting for a guard or just a random thug to wander by, then run as fast as I could until I heard someone else coming.  
About the time when I got halfway to the steel mill, I figured out that my scanner could do heat signatures, too. Out of curiosity I did a heat scan of myself and wasn’t surprised when it read at about twenty degrees too cold for anyone to survive.  
Anyone except Dad and me that is.  
The night sure wasn’t quiet; I could hear men talking to one another, the TYGER helicopters overhead, and the occasional screams. They didn’t bother me, especially since I didn’t to wait around listening to them for very long.  
Suddenly, an overweight (or maybe just over muscled) man appeared right around the corner. I was going too fast to stop, so I decided to make use of the lead pipe that I had been carrying around.   
I used it like one of those jump poles and leaned all my weight on it, launching myself forward. I’m not terribly tall, but I did manage to knock him off his feet. I landed on top of him in a heap, which wasn’t the plan, because it made me look like some lovesick girl tackling a movie star.  
Thankfully, his breath had been knocked out of him and he wouldn’t be able to call for help. That gave me just enough time to give him a couple whacks with my pipe.  
Unfortunately, it made a loud noise whenever it connected with his head. I imagined hearing his skull shatter and grinned. The trouble struck, yet again.  
“Snake?” Apparently he wasn’t patrolling alone. Crap.  
I looked around and found a dark alleyway to hide in. Crouching behind a crate, I watched as some guys wearing clown make-up emerged from the street opening where I had first neglected to see ‘Snake’ coming from.  
“Snake, wake up man!” One of them kneeled over Snake and began slapping him, which would have been silly, except each one of those guys was roughly double my size, not to mention there were about five more of them.  
“He’s probably dead, Crunch. Stop messing with him.” I barely stifled a laugh. Where were they getting such horrible nicknames? The fact that I might have killed Snake didn’t bother me in the slightest. I imagined telling Dad about later and he, measuring some liquid nitrogen, would say in a preoccupied tone, “What took you so long?”  
I had just promised to make sure somebody was dead by the time I got my jacket back when Snake rolled over, groaning.  
“Snake? What happened?” Crunch asked worriedly. “How did you end up laid out on the street?”  
“There was a… a chick.” He touched his head and winced. “She… came running at me and knocked me over. I don’t remember what happened after that.”  
The others started snickering. I couldn’t help smiling, too. That big bad Snake just got schooled by a sixteen week old girl.  
Crunch didn’t laugh, which made me think that they were actually friends. “A… chick? In here?” He looked skeptical, all the same. “Are you sure?”  
“Yeah.” Snake was on his feet now, swaying slightly, but definitely on his feet. I must not have hit him nearly as hard I thought. Ah, well. I can pick up a knife or something and use that next time.  
“She was about this high,” He placed his hand about waist-height, leaving me incensed. I knew I was short, but come on! That’s pushing it. “Blonde hair, kinda looked like Harley, actually.”  
“So…let me get this straight.” One of the others spoke up. “You got wasted by a ten-year-old girl, who looks like the boss’s girlfriend?”  
I had had enough. I stood up and stepped out boldly underneath the streetlamp. “Yes, he did.” I snapped. They all turned towards me, gave each other skeptical glances, then advanced. Oops.  
I looked around, spotting a flickering light post a meter or so down the road. I ran towards it and shimmied up the thing, perching on top of it. It really wasn’t that hard, but if the thugs had been a little smarter, they could have caught me before I was out of their reach. But they had just stood there, gaping, until one of them yelled, “Get her!”  
However, I was too high, even for Crunch, who was easily the tallest in the group. I crouched on top of the light post, looking around. The first thing I noticed was a metal canopy close enough for me to leap onto.  
To just make fun of the thugs, whom I could tell by now were complete idiots, I grabbed onto the light post with my knees and swung upside down for just a split second. One of their grubby hands nearly grabbed my hair, but I swung back up on top of the lamppost before he could get a grip on it. I stood up carefully, balancing on the rail. The jump was a success, but I banged up my arm and had lost my lead pipe. I mentally promised to get another one shortly.   
The jokes (you know… like they’re a complete joke? And they work for the Joker? No? Forget it.) were all kind of standing around with their mouths open. I started running across the canopy and was already on the ground and fifty feet away by the time I heard them in pursuit. Fifty feet of clearance? I knew I was only a few minutes away from the steel mill, and fifty feet of space between them and me was plenty.   
I saw on my heat scanner plenty of people just kind of standing, shifting back and forth on their feet. From the position of their arms, I knew they had guns. Since when could you smuggle guns into Arkham City?  
But I didn’t have time to think about that, and saw a ladder that led up to a steel platform, which I guess kinda made sense. The jokes were only twenty feet behind me, and that meant I would have to move quickly to put enough distance between them and me to make it to where ever my jacket was.  
I was up the ladder in a flash and was desperately looking around for a way into the mill when I noticed a broken windowpane. That may not sound like much, but these were industrialized-size windows, which meant that a sumo wrestler could have fit through them. Keeping a careful watch for broken glass, I stepped through it delicately, sneaking a glance back to see that only one of the jokes was off the ladder, and that the two that were still at the bottom were having an argument about who would get to go up the ladder first.  
Flashing a grin at the thugs, I slipped inside.

The thugs had searched for a bit, but then decided I wasn’t worth it. They left, presumably to finish their rounds.  
Well, that was one obstacle out of the way, but now I was going to go from heat scanner to homing beacon, which meant I’d have to be extra careful. Although I wasn’t the best stealth person, considering I’d only had a few hours of experience in the field, I was pretty sure, since no one was looking for me, that I would be pretty much unnoticed.  
The steel mill was filthy. There was no other way to describe it. Both literally and figuratively. First there was the stench. Imagine being in gym class after the basketball team, the track team, and the volleyball team have all been playing for over three hours. Now imagine that they’re all still in there.  
That’s basically how it smelled in the steel mill, only as if they hadn’t showered and then come back to play over the span of a week and never washed once.  
Second, it was filthy in there, but then, what stayed clean in a psychopath’s favorite hideaway. Dad’s lab was sterile, but it was encrusted with ice that probably wouldn’t melt in the middle of summer.  
But at least it was dark. My prison jumpsuit was still going to stand out (I’ve got to get some new clothes.), but there really wasn’t anything I could do about that but stay in as deep shadows as I could find.

It was pretty easy to find the main attraction. There was a bunch of yelling and jeering, plus a high-pitched scream that was going on and on.  
I followed it to a circular room that was ringed with thugs. Thankfully, they were all focused on a huge man with one arm and a hammer trying to smash a middle-aged woman in the center of the room.   
I wasn’t really interested in that, because I looked up and to my right, I saw a clown head, like the ones that are the entrances to funhouses at carnivals. I think it was being used as a balcony.  
My homing scanner was going crazy. My jacket was in that room. Then I spied a baseball bat lying by the door. Its owner was too busy watching that woman being crushed to a pulp to notice me borrowing his bat.

It didn’t take me long to find the staircase that led up to the room with the balcony. By the time the men in the room below staring booing the man with the hammer, I was at the door of the room.  
My idea of how to get my jacket back was simple: Ask the person who had my jacket for it back, if they were in there, or just take it back if no one was in there.  
I knocked. (What? Even if I’m a psychopath, it doesn’t mean I don’t have manners.) I only had to wait a few seconds. The door flew open, and my jaw dropped.  
I probably was a mirror image of the woman standing in the doorway. She was… me. Or an older version of me, anyway. She had blonde hair up in pigtails, the same color as mine, ice blue eyes, just like I have, and I was willing to bet by the time I’m twenty we would only be have about ten centimeters difference in height.  
She was just standing there, stunned, when someone behind her called out, “Harley? Who is it?”  
Harley blinked, then called over her shoulder, “Uh, puddin’? You might wanna come ova here.”  
Of course Harley was with her boyfriend. The Joker emerged from the shadows and came towards us. The way Harley was standing was blocking his view of me, but I could see him clearly.  
Green hair combed in a strange, if flattering, hairstyle, white skin that was slightly blotchy, as if he was just getting over an infection, and a wide red smile, that I could tell was mostly lipstick.  
The thing was, I could see why Harley was attracted to him. He was cute, in an insane kind of way, and I could tell just from looking at him that he had a brand of insanity that was very charismatic.  
He was almost to us when Harley stepped out of his line of vision. Joker stopped, and looked to me, then to Harley, then back to me, and burst out laughing.  
“Harley, you never told me you had a sister!”  
“But I don’t Mistah J!” Harley protested. “I’ve nevah seen her before!”  
“Well, then, this is the best joke I’ve seen in a long time!” Joker laughed again, but half way through started hacking and coughing.  
While Harley hurried over to him to see if he was okay, I did a quick scan of him. The results surprised me, and I decided to confront him about it.  
“You’re sick.”  
“Well aren’t you just the little detective.” He muttered.  
“No, I mean really sick. It’s nothing on record either.”   
That probably wasn’t the best thing to say. Joker stood up straight, staring at me intensely. “And how would you know that, pumpkin?”  
I resented the nickname, but decided to be honest, but nonchalant. I shrugged. “My name’s Isabelle. My dad’s Dr. Victor Fries. I know these things.”  
That sent the Joker into another fit of laughs. “The snowman has a kid? Where’s he been keeping you all these years?”  
I was beginning to think that everything made the Joker laugh, not that it was surprising. “Around.” I snapped. “Now, I came here for something, and I’d really like it back. My jacket, please.”  
Harley (probably my appearance had given her a shock, and she was acting crazy. You know, crazier than usual.) went over to the closet and got out my jacket. When she gave it to me, I buried my face in it. Mom’s scent was still faintly clinging to it, but Harley’s perfume was still the most prominent scent.  
I remembered the bat I was carrying then and held it out to Harley. “Here. I think this is yours.”  
She waved it off. “Hey, my double has to have a special weapon, right? Let’s make it the same!”

I hung out with Harley and the Joker a few more hours, getting to know them better. It was almost morning by the time I left, and they even gave me some make-up.   
“So that no one will bother ya.” Harley explained. “On owh territory, you’ll look just like everyone else.”  
I hugged Harley then, and after a second, she hugged back. “I awlways wanted a little sistah.” She whispered, so low that even Joker couldn’t hear.   
I let go of her and smiled. “Harley, you’re the luckiest girl in the whole world. I bet every other maniac woman envies you.”  
“Aw…” Harley hugged me again, then Joker interrupted. “You had better get home. I’m sure that the iceman gave you some sort of curfew.” We both laughed. He was right. Dad had said I had to be home by ten in the morning.  
I was almost gone when Joker called out, “By the way, your dad’s got a bit of a grudge against me! He might take offense to your adoption!”  
That was his way of saying, ‘don’t let the cat out of the bag’. I was happy to do it. Harley was cool, and Joker… wow. He was something else. My father probably wouldn’t like it that I was hanging out with ‘the clown’.  
A lot of the other rogues call each other by nicknames, probably not caring enough to call them by their villain names, and that also was an element of respect to call them ‘Penguin’, ‘Riddler’, and so on. I’ve heard (or had programmed into me) that Dad’s been called the iceman, the snowman, Icebox, and so on. I wasn’t really sure what they would call me, besides ‘the Icebox’s brat’. I really wanted to be feared in the rogue community, but I also wanted to be able to go out onto the street and have a normal day, maybe go to a club, or go shopping, without having to wreck the place.  
The walk back to my place was pretty uneventful, since Joker had sent along ‘Bones’ to make sure nobody attacked me. Bones and I didn’t really talk; I got the impression he wasn’t really chatty. Come to think of it, I’m not really either.  
He stopped right at the edge of the Joker’s territory, and I said goodbye and headed back. I was about a fifteen-minute walk from my building, and twenty-minute walk from home. Since I had another hour until I absolutely had to get home, I decided to stop by and see if Aiden had a place to stay. Not that I’d take him home, Dad would freeze him into the 31st Century.  
But I felt responsible for him, and he had better stay alive, otherwise I would have gotten all these bruises for nothing. Dad probably would be disappointed I didn’t kill anyone yet, heck, I was disappointed, but maybe tomorrow.

Aiden almost wet himself when I climbed back up the ladder. But he relaxed – well, kind of – when he saw it was me.  
“I thought I was going to die every time someone walked underneath!” he exclaimed.  
Okay, I’ll say it. He’s a coward. But at least I can teach him to defend himself. Striding up to him, I stood up straight and said bluntly, “Hit me.”  
Whatever he was expecting me to say, it definitely wasn’t that. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you nuts?”  
I shrugged. “Maybe. But hit me.”  
“But… I might hurt you.” He protested.  
“I can assure you, anything you can throw at me is unlikely to hurt as much as being smashed against a wall. Now hit me!”  
He threw a half hearted punch at me, which I dodged easily, gripping his arm and throwing him away from me, over my out stretched foot. He went down, but I gripped his arm so that he didn’t fall too hard.  
That was the most pathetic punch I had ever seen in my lifetime, which, though short, had already seen more then the average person did in person. But I tried to focus on the good stuff.  
“Well, you don’t have any bad habits, so I bet I can teach you to fight a bit in the half-hour I have before I’ve got to go.”  
“Okay… um, why do you have to go?”  
Now I looked at him like he was crazy. “It’s almost nine in the morning. I’m going home to get some rest and get something to eat. This is an apartment building, so I’m sure you’ll find a place to stay. Now, try to mimic what I do.”  
I went through a bunch of exercises from the videos I had watched earlier seemed easiest. I didn’t take into account the fact that Aiden was malnourished and had never been in a fight to save his life before getting thrown in here. Before long, he was winded and breathing heavily.  
But despite that, by the end, he was able to block a simple punch without crying out in pain where it had connected with his hand. I had gone easy on him, but that was a start.  
I was climbing down the ladder when Aiden called out behind me, “Hey Ice!”  
I poked my head over the top of the ledge, and he said in a solemn voice, “Thanks.”  
I nodded and continued my descent.

When I got home, I went to the lab to check in with Dad. He was occupied with some sort of read out and was muttering under his breath.  
“Hey, Dad!” I called out. “This was the best first day ever! I got to see so much!”  
I chattered on for quite a bit, leaving out Aiden and my trip to the steel mill. But then Dad interrupted me. “Isabelle, I’m busy right now. Get something to eat, then go to bed. This needs my undivided attention.”  
Confused, I tried to look at his screen, but he stepped in front of it firmly. “Isabelle, this does not concern you. Now run along.”  
Confused, but obeying, I went to the kitchen and got out a can of peaches. Hugo Strange was really weird with what he sent in here, and the stronger you are, the more food you get, since it’s every man for himself. Dad must have been stocking up for weeks before I got here, because there was enough food in here for a month or so. For a family of eight. I was pretty sure the previous owners of this stash were no longer alive, but it didn’t bother me.  
The peaches were enough to satisfy my hunger, and I grabbed a plastic cup and got a glass of water to drink before going to the women’s bathroom, and since prisoners were held in the police station, there was a shower that was ready for me to use. I don’t know how Dad did it, but anything I could possibly need was in here, except for make-up, jewelry, and clothes. Oh, well. I could always go searching, or maybe go visit some of the other girls in here, namely Poison Ivy, Harley, or Catwoman.  
I waited as the water warmed up, breathing on the glass and writing and The shower was only about seventy degrees, but it was nice and warm to me. My skin was pink by the time I got out, and I was warm enough that I didn’t put on my jacket again.  
My room was a prison cell, but it was comfy enough that I wasn’t concerned about how ironic this was. It was either here, or one of the little sliding trays over at the morgue, which wasn’t creepy at all (note the sarcasm).  
Dad hadn’t left any books for me to read while I was falling asleep, but then I remembered something. He’d given me an iPod, or something like it, and given me the programming to hack into iTunes and download any song I wanted to. I stayed up for another hour brow


	4. Enter: Pirouette!

The next evening, I woke up around ten at night. Dad had dropped a blanket on top of me, a simple black blanket. Looking around, I noticed a cabinet in the corner.

I swung my feet onto the ground, which was pleasantly cool, and walked over to the old wooden cabinet, kneeling down to open the bottom set of doors. Inside were my boots, a leather rucksack, and another orange jumpsuit.

Dad must have wanted me out of the house badly to just stop by and place all this stuff in a cabinet.

The upper pair of doors were only about six inches tall, and housed many other blankets, folded neatly and only two colors jumped out at me. Black and gray. I guess it's hard to find stuff in Arkham.

But then, as I pulled on the new jumpsuit, boots and stuffed two blankets into my rucksack, that this was very uncharacteristic of Dad. But the way he'd been acting last night made me kind of hesitant to ask him if he was okay.

I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water (it actually seemed pretty warm to me) and brushed my hair. There. I looked pretty good for living in no man's land.

I came to the lab to say hi to Dad, but he didn't even reply. Of course. He was acting so strange, that I didn't know what to think of it.

Then I got an idea. "Dad, I'm going out. Be back by ten!" I called out, walking over to the refrigerator and grabbing some water bottles and two cans of soup. I wasn't sure whether he heard me or not, but I didn't care.

The first place I went was Aiden's and my meeting place. He was already up, and was doing some of the exercises that I showed him.

Again, he almost fell over when I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Ice! Will you quit that?" He swore. Now, since I don't like cursing at all, I'm going to tell you what he said. It's not important, and if it is, I'll just replace the words. Got it?

"Hey, Aiden. Since you can't train on an empty stomach, I brought you something to eat, but be slow. I don't know when you last ate, or if this is too rich. I don't want throwing up on me, the ground, or anywhere, really."

I tossed him the water bottle and a can of soup, then settled down for my breakfast too. He was done way before me, but waited patiently for me to be done.

As soon as I was finished, I stood up. "I'm going to show you a couple more moves, then I've got to go. I'm gonna visit some friends today."

Aiden looked like he wanted to ask who these friends were, but he didn't. He silently followed some more difficult exercises, breathing heavily. As soon as I had taught him enough to keep him occupied, since I wouldn't be back until morning, I asked him if there was a bathroom in his apartment. He said yes and gave me directions.

Now, if it weren't Arkham City, Aiden's penthouse suite would have been pretty sweet (Heh. Pun.). It was huge, but I didn't stick around looking, but headed for the guest bathroom.

The tile floors made my boots clomp heavily, creating more noise than I would've liked, no matter how quiet I was.

Once in there, I slung my rucksack off my shoulder and rummaged through it, picking out the clown make-up that Harley and Joker had supplied me with the other day.

I smudged the white make-up loosely, letting my light skin faintly show through, then took the black eyeliner and drew it darkly around my eyes and thickly applied the mascara. Then I drew the Joker smile in red on my cheeks, stretching it almost to my jawbone.

For the final touch, I got back out the eyeliner and carefully drew a stylized tear on my cheek. The girl in the mirror looked almost nothing like me, but that was the point.

Taking care that Aiden didn't see me, I slipped out the window to the fire escape, and was gone almost as soon as my goodbye had stopped echoing.

When Harley opened the door, she squealed with delight. "Izzy! You look just like a part of the family now!"

I smiled and thanked her, but her delight was nothing compared to Joker's. He started laughing so hard he nearly passed out from the coughing fit that followed.

His laugh was so infectious, that I giggled too. "My dad wouldn't really like me visiting you guys, so I decided this will be my alter ego. Call me Pirouette!"

Joker was so excited to have me on board that he called a short meeting for below them to have Harley introduce me.

I nervous, but Harley made it easy. "Listen up, losers! This here's Pirouette! She's in charge, after me and Mistah J! And if you don't listen to her, you'll have to answer to Mistah J!"

And that was that. I noticed Snake was in the corner, but I wasn't sure whether he could tell that the girl who'd knocked him out and Pirouette were the same. But once we were back in the office, we hung out for a bit, before Harley snapped her fingers. "Yah can't be just wearing that ugly prison thing! Let's see if we can make yah own unique look!"

If anyone knew fashion, it was Harley. Her harlequin look was different and tough. No one could say she was a typical dumb blonde, although I did know that she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Joker gave us his leave and Harley took her bat, but I had left mine at home, so she gave me a pistol to use. The whole was exciting, the very thing I craved about criminal activity.

We had been 'shopping' for about three hours before we found the perfect outfit. And by 'shopping', I mean that we would go around and anything that we found that seemed right for my new outfit either I would shoot the owner or Harley would knock him into unconsciousness, and we would take the piece and then I would shoot him.

It was the most fun I'd ever had, and it felt addictive. Now that we were doing it, I never wanted to stop. But soon Harley said we were done, so we went back to the steel mill and started putting my costume together.

When I finally stepped out, both Joker and Harley burst into applause. I was wearing a frilly white blouse that only came down to my ribcage; with large buttons on the front and tight black capris with dark combat boots.

My make-up was the same as when I had arrived, but I had changed my hairstyle, pulling it back into a ponytail. I wasn't about to dye the ends of my hair, like Harley had done, but we looked enough alike, if not like twins. If we stayed with the assumption that I was Harley's sister, then everything would go smoothly, even if Dad did hear about a new member of the clown family.

Joker didn't come out of his room very often, so Harley and I wandered around the steel mill, talking to each other, but then I stopped abruptly. The room ahead was way above what was comfortable. Harley looked fine, which meant the room was about ninety degrees.

According to my calculations, comfortable for me is fifty, and about the highest I can stand is seventy. I whispered this to Harley, and she nodded, though she had a confused expression on her face, which made me think that she almost didn't pass science in college.

From that moment on, we steered clear of the main chimney. I learned a lot about Harley as we walked around, and I think she learned a lot about me. And more than ever, I was convinced that Harley was a great person. I was honored that I was her adopted little sister.

After a couple more rounds around the steel mill, one in which all we did was hit each thug that moved out of the way to let us past and every one that didn't.

Then Harley slapped her forehead. "I almost forgot! I gotta go over to the church! There's a doctor over there we need to go get!"

"You mean… kidnap?" I suggested.

"Mm hmm." Harley nodded, though just for a second I fear in her eyes. Then I realized something. Harley was going to go and get a doctor for Mr. J. Oh, wow. I'm starting to do it now. Oh, well. We'll sound more like sisters then. And Harley was afraid that Mr. J wasn't going to recover. Scary.

But I pretended like I hadn't noticed and bounced along behind her as she found some idiotic thugs to help us with the takeover of the church. They were all idiotic, as I said, but they were strong, which is what we needed.

As soon as we had enough people, Harley used on of her doll-heads to tell Mr. J that we were leaving now. He kind of just waved us on. I got the impression that he was trying to lay down and rest.

We left by the main exit and were off! I was excited. This was my first chance to meet anyone outside the prisoners. And my first chance to kill one.

The church was big and prominent, so it didn't take us too long to find a direct route. But then again, I got the feeling that Harley had done this before.

We were almost at the church when Harley whispered in my ear, "Shoot one of these losers."

I nodded, even though I didn't understand. I whipped around and aimed the pistol. One shot, within close range. That guy didn't stand a chance.

As he toppled to the ground, Harley pulled out a dirty old rag and started soaking up the blood from his wound. Everyone was slowly backing away from me, but I didn't care. As soon as Harley decided she had enough blood, she turned to me.

"Take off yah boot, Pirouette."

I was catching on now, so I pulled off my boot quickly and tied the rag around my calf. Now it looked like I'd just been sliced by some good-for-nothing low life. It was good, because now I could really focus everyone's attention on me, just as Harley planned. Who said she wasn't smart?

I banged on the church doors, trying to seem desperate. It took a minute, but then some old guy came to the door. I had rubbed some dirt on my face, and had been able to make myself cry by getting some dirt in them too.

"Help me!" I cried, and was pleased that I sounded pretty darn distressed.

He called out behind him to some doctor, I think it was the one we were supposed to take to Mr. J, and then scooped me up to carry me inside. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harley giving me the thumbs up.

Then the door closed and I tried to look as if I was exhausted. Like I was dying. It apparently fooled the others in the room, and they crowded around me, carefully laying me on the ground.

No, they couldn't lay me on the ground. "Please, let me sit up." I whispered. At first they were hesitant, but then they allowed me to sit on a crate. Then, with tears in my eyes, I looked at the man who had brought me in, a white guy, kind of overweight, with graying hair and asked in a pleading tone, "My sister's still outside. Please, she needs a doctor."

He nodded and went to the door, while the doctor, a middle-aged man with dark hair and glasses, started to unwrap my fake bandage. "Wait." I stopped him from unwrapping it fully. "I'm sorry." I whispered, then leaped up, just as Harley and her men burst into the room.

"Hey, fellas. Sorry for burstin' in like this, but my little sis couldn't answer the door, could yah, P?"

I jumped up with a grin on my face. "Now I can." Then I pulled my gun from my belt and held it to the doctor's head. I read his identification, which read Dr. Martin White.

"Now listen up, everybody!" Now everyone was staring at me, but I was too high on excitement to care. "Dr. White's got a very special skill that we need from him, but he's replaceable, which means, that all you do-gooders have to do is make one false move and then, blam! No more Doctor White. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, Harley?"

"I agree, Pirouette." Harley went over to one of the other dudes and said in a tone that most people reserve for babies, "Why don't you speak for the group, sweetie?"

The man she had chosen looked around, and even without my scanner I knew he was sweating. But then he swallowed and said in a dry voice. "All right first a question. Who the heck are you?" He pointed at me.

I shrugged. "I'm Harley's sister, Pirouette. Any other stupid questions? 'Cause I think my trigger finger wants some excitement."

He stopped talking then, leaving us free to secure the room while I held onto the doctor. Dr. White looked pretty much furious. "There's nothing wrong with your leg!" He hissed. I spun him around, and with my gun still pressing against his temple, I reached down to pull off the bandage. "On the contrary. There's plenty wrong with me." I hissed back, pointing my pistol at a MRT across the room and firing. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I smiled, knowing that he would find me scary, having just killed someone and smiling about it.

"Oh, Pirou!" Harley was by the door now. "I think we're finished here. Bring the good doc and let's head home!"

I spun Dr. White around again and pushed my gun against the base of his spine, giving a shove. He stumbled and began walking. My first meeting with people on the outside, and I already found them dull.

When we got back to Joker's Funhouse (I had just noticed the bright neon sign. Go figure.), Harley and I escorted Dr. White upstairs to visit Mr. J.

The first thing he did was attack both Harley and Joker verbally.

"How could you bring a child into this? She's hardly fourteen!"

"I'm sixteen, thanks for noticing." I was leaning against a wall, twirling my gun.

"She's still a child! How could you bring her into this life?" I realized that, even though Harley and I had established that we were sisters, he thought I was her daughter. Creepy. That was something I couldn't stand.

I walked right up to him. "Now listen, doc. I chose to join up with them, and they agreed to let me. I'm Harley's sister, and I'm not the Joker's anything, besides helper, as it were. So stop talking about this like you think you understand!" I was yelling by the end of it, and had the gun again pressed against his head. Only Harley's look told me to back off.

I could tell that Dr. White would have probably continued his rant, but then Joker interjected with a laugh, "Pirouette has a point, but let's let those two clowns leave us in peace, because I need help with something that you should know something about, doc."

That was his cue for us to leave, and we exited quickly.

I was shaking with rage, but Harley thought of the perfect thing to get my mind off that infuriating doctor. "Hey, what d'ya say we head to some quiet area and I show ya how to do a triple back flip?"

That sounded promising. I followed her into the room right below their room. Harley made quick work out of all the thugs, hitting them with her bat until they got the hint.

"Awl right. I'm gonna do the move, then go right back and do it slowly."

She stood on the far side of the room, facing the wall. I heard her take a deep breath, then she was flipping end over end, one…two…three times.

That was the only time I needed to see it. When Harley completed the last flip, she was standing facing me. "Awl right, now I'm gonna do it slowly for yah."

"That won't be necessary." I turned my back to her and imagined her doing the move, seeing the mathematics of it, then took a deep breath, just like Harley had done.

Then the world was flipping around, and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the ground underneath my hands, bending my elbows, then straightening them quickly. Then my feet hit the ground, bending at the knees, and I kicked off, my bent figure keeping me going backward.

One, two, three times. I was at the other end of the circular room, and had my arms above me in a finishing pose, then turned around and skipped back over to Harley.

"How was that, Harley?"

She seemed rather at a loss for words, but then she grinned. "Yah shoulda told me yah could pick up stuff that quickly! Let's see how much we can fit in before Mistah J appointment is ovah."

We worked quickly, she doing the whole move, then I repeating it, till we were in perfect sync, swinging on bars, shimmying up poles, doing backflips in flawless unison. We had just finished a routine that Harley had come up with when a doll – a harlequin doll, I realized – started squawking for us to come back upstairs.

"Comin' Mistah J!" Harley said hurriedly, and soon we were flying up the stairs, and got there in less than a minute. Harley skidded to a stop, and I almost ran into her. But then she walked in calmly, and I followed closely.

A whispered word from Joker and Harley went to another harlequin doll in the corner and yelled into it, "Attention, losers! I want yah in the common room, stat!"

That was Harley speak for, 'be there, or your brains get blown out'.

Soon the circular room underneath us was filled to overflowing. Harley dragged the doctor over to the edge and almost began speaking when she panicked and turned back to us. "Puddin', I don't know what to say!"

"Maybe your 'sister' can give you some ideas." Joker said wearily. He was exhausted, I could tell even without my scanner.

"Um… oh! I've got it! Have a contest, maybe whoever can put the most bullets in him without killing him!"

Doctor White looked at me as if I was crazy. I shrugged and shot him a pretty crazy smile.

"I love this kid!" Joker said gleefully. "Harley, take it and make it your own!"

Harley smiled gratefully, then went out onto the ledge, dragging White behind her. I don't know why he didn't try to escape, but then he hissed, "You're right. There's more wrong with you than you'll ever know."

Harley's voice echoed as she yelled out, "Hiya, and welcome to our Laughter TV special, Break That Bone! The one who breaks the most bones on the doc in under fifteen seconds wins!" She kicked him out into the arena and began keeping track of the number of cracks she heard and the seconds.

I winced and turned away. I'm a little squeamish when it comes to the sound of breaking of bones. I'm not sure why, and I don't care. But anyway, I tried to get as far away as possible, which happened to be next to Mr. J.

"By the way, what was or good friend the doctor talking about?" He asked in a low voice.

I wondered what he was talking about for a minute before it came to me. "Oh, he accused me of having nothing wrong with my leg." I filled him in on the details of my deception and ended it with, "so I said, 'there's plenty wrong with me'. If you want to, you're free to use it, should the occasion rise." I finished with a shrug. "I don't know when I'll be able to use it again."

A yell came up from the ground floor along with a sickening crack. I felt my stomach churn. "Listen, I've got to go. My dad is expecting me home early tonight."

And without waiting for his leave, I raced out the door before I could embarrass myself by puking on the Clown Prince of Crime.


	5. The Meeting of Harvey Dent

After I left Joker's Funhouse, I wandered around for a bit, just kicking a stone along the rooftops. It was boring, but I didn't really have anything else to do. The option of going back to Harley and Mr. J was no can do. I'd already told them I needed to get back home.

Going back to Aiden just yet wasn't something I really wanted to do yet, either. He was a good student, if nothing else, but I really didn't want to go back and visit him after only a five-hour intermission.

That's when it hit me. I had told Aiden I was going to go and visit some friends, so why shouldn't I? Harley and Joker weren't the only ones in town! Two-Face, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, the list went on and on. Dad had programmed me with their hideouts, most likely so that I would stay away from them. But Dad wasn't in control any more. I was my own person, and he couldn't care less what I did and where I went, he'd made that abundantly clear.

I brought up my map and did a quick random pick to see whom I visited first. It landed on Catwoman. All right, then. I could use her sly techniques to get around even more quietly. Maybe I would also make a new friend. I set off on foot along the street, hiding from any patrols.

When I got to Catwoman's apartment building, nobody was home. I guess thieving is very much a 'out of town' kind of job. I sat down to wait for her, but then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Oops. I was still dressed up as Pirouette.

Thankfully, I hadn't forgotten my bag in my mad rush out of the steel mill, and I went into Catwoman's bathroom to wash up and change from crazy Pirouette to dangerous Isabelle Fries.

I splashed cold water on my face, then grabbed a white towel to rub off the make-up, running the towel under hot water to make sure no one could tell that there had ever been make-up on it.

Then I hurriedly shed my costume and slipped back into the prison uniform, again tying the long-sleeved part around my waist. Folding the outfit and quickly putting it back in my bag, I pulled out my ponytail and brushed through my hair with my fingers before stepping out of the bathroom.

I knew something was wrong the moment I got back to the living room. I had climbed in through the window, but I had locked it behind me, and now it was swinging back and forth on its hinges.

I heard a noise behind me and turned, but I wasn't fast enough. Something came at me so fast that I closed my eyes. Then I was slammed against the wall so hard that I lost my breath.

As I was hacking and coughing, trying to get it back, a voice purred in my ear, "I knew it. I always know when somebody comes visiting. Now, what will it be? A big kitty scratch, or how about the catnip manu-"

The voice stopped. Still clutching me firmly around the throat, the person thrust me into the light by the window, which was just enough to illuminate my features.

The person dropped me, leaving me coughing on the ground, and rubbing at my throat as I slowly got to my feet. "What's a kitten like you doing in this place?" She asked in a purr-like way.

I had decided from the point when I had met Harley and the Joker to always tell the truth to the rogues, so I answered simply, "I was born here."

Silence. Then Catwoman stepped into the light. She was wearing a tight-fitting black suit, that was unzipped rather low, if I was to wear it, and it had a belt around the waist, a hood-like thing with cat ears and goggles.

"You were born here? Why didn't you leave?" She asked in an incredulous voice.

"Look, my dad created me. I'm a clone. Been in here since the start. He was already imprisoned when thy started work on this, and then he got thrown in here, started working on me the second he got in."

"Your dad sounds like a real jerk." Catwoman made even that sound elegant and melodious. I needed to learn how to do that.

"Not really. He leaves me alone most of the time, doesn't care what I do."

"Even hanging out with Harley and the Joker?"

"Well he doesn't - Hey! Stop poking through my stuff!"

"Relax, I won't tell Freeze."

Now I was just shell-shocked. "How – How did you know that?"

"Simple observation. Anyone who touches you knows that while you feel like you should be shivering like crazy, you're actually sweating. And come on, a clone? Who else would do that?"

I guess she had a point, so I continued. "Anyway, just wanted to say hi and stuff. But now I can say bye. Bye."

"Wait."

I stopped and turned to face her. "You're a freelancer, like me. You have no real ties to your father other than sharing his DNA. You hang out with the clown family, but you obviously don't like hanging out with the crazies 24/7, or else you'd still be over there. Maybe I can teach you something."

That was what I had wanted all along, but I was wary. "What's in it for you?"

"I might call in a favor at one point or the other, but right now, nothing."

I thought for a second, then shrugged. "Okay, let's do it. But don't be slowing down for me. I only need to see you do something once. Let's go."

We were on top of a roof when she handed me a whip. "Okay, rule number one: this can help you get almost any where; it's not just a weapon."

She uncurled hers and crossed over to the building next door, which was slightly taller. Catwoman cracked it, and I mean cracked it, I swear I could have heard all the way at downtown Gotham.

But instead of curling it back up, she had wrapped her whip around the very lip of the roof, and pulled on it, then was springing up the wall. A flash of metal told me that she had claw gloves or something on.

It was a very handy trick, and I would have attempted it, except that I didn't have the claw gloves.

That's when she tossed something to me. I caught it and fingered it. A pair of clawed gloves. I grinned and tilted my chin to look up. The roof that I was aiming for was about fifteen feet up, and the wall was brick, which was helpful for my first time.

Determined not to mess this up, I replayed Catwoman's attempt, looking at the physics, geometry, and other aspects. It let me know how to do it exactly as she had, but I didn't know if I was strong enough.

Uncurling my whip, I got a firm grip on the handle, and standing as far away from the roof I was aiming for as possible, I took a run for it. When I was about twenty feet away, I let the whip fly, feeling resistance as it caught.

Pulling as hard as I could, I jumped, and then let go of the whip, it now dangling from a wrist strap. I dug my claws into the wall, feeling the roughness of the brick and feeling myself falling. I panicked and pushed up the wall as hard as I could. My claws were stuck though, and I ended up flat on my back.

"You're an curious kitten, you know that?" Catwoman was beside me now, looking at me with interest. "It took me a month to even learn how to do that."

"I'm a fast learner." I shrugged. While I had made a promise to myself not to lie to Rogues, I wasn't about to tell them I was a cyborg either. I wonder how many of the superheroes would sympathize. I went through the list quickly. Cyborg, Superboy (Come on, I know a clone when I see one!) and Raven. (I may find Dad's way of life fun and exciting, but both of our fathers were villains, whether we liked it or not.)

Catwoman looked at me for a second, then shrugged. "Alright. Now I'll show you another couple tricks. I don't want to wait around while you try that over and over again."

We practiced and practiced. Mostly with a whip, because after Catwoman and I sparred once, she said just keep doing whatever you're doing, because you're already good enough for one of the bozos that we might come up across.

I wasn't sure about the 'we', but she was teaching me a lot, and letting me have a lot of gear that might need later. I was going to keep my end of the deal, and Catwoman was one of the few Rogues who didn't double-cross everyone. If she was getting paid, then she was going to stick with it. And my help would most certainly pay off.

Finally after a good two hours or so, she stopped and stretched. "Alright, kitten. I think if you come back in two weeks you can pay me back for all this practice."

Taking my cue for an exit, I left quickly. Now on to visit Two-Face. He was one of the other main powers in Arkham City, but no one besides Catwoman, Harley, and Joker knew that Isabelle Fries was Pirouette. I thought it was ironic that the male version of a pirouette was Perriot, which used to perform with harlequins, back when clowns weren't, you know, homicidal maniacs.

While I knew that Joker killed people on a regular basis, it didn't bother me in the slightest. On the contrary, it gave me an adrenaline rush, something that was becoming addictive. Not that it mattered if I was addicted to excitement, there was always plenty of that to go around in here.

Taking off the clawed gloves and coiling the whip, I placed them carefully back into my leather pack, next to my make-up, costume, and gun. Then I started walking. I was too new at gallivanting along the rooftops to risk falling. But then I remembered something that I would need later. I was off to the Solomon Wayne Courthouse, but first I had to make a stop at the diner across the street, abandoned, of course.

When I got there, I looked around, finally seeing what I wanted. A vending machine. It was smashed and the food it had contained was long since raided and eaten. But nobody bothered with the quarters that it contained. I searched through it quickly, finally finding a double-headed coin. It was considered good luck in Gotham to use a double-headed coin to get your snacks, but both of the heads were unscathed. Exactly as I had planned. Pocketing the coin, I hid my backpack, except for the pistol, which I carried with me.

Now to visit the person with the most split personality in all of Arkham, maybe Gotham.

The entrance point was easy. The front door was guarded heavily, but the courthouse was made with ancient architecture in mind, and there was a fake balcony right above the front door. Actually, it was more just the roof for a front porch, but you get the idea. Two-Face obviously wanted everyone to know where he lived, because the right side of the building was completely wrecked, like a stick of dynamite had been contained only on the half of the building. The left side looked as if it still belonged on a functioning city block. I guess even the fact that he had chosen the courthouse was predictable.

I looked around and spied a clump of bushes. I crept towards them, keeping in the shadows, which got harder the closer to the Solomon Wayne Courthouse I got. What idiot lights up their HQ with floodlights? It makes it almost impossible for sneaks and thieves to get in without being seen?

While I said I was going to visit Two-Face, I wasn't stupid, either. I had a fifty percent chance of getting killed, or worse, unless I was careful about how I came to him. And that meant going in without being dragged in by his goons. Well, maybe that was a good idea. Yeah, that's what I was going to do. Just to make it interesting.

I crawled underneath the bushes and then dashed behind each pillar, making sure they didn't see me until I was opening the door.

"Hey!" Wow, they need more lessons then I do about actually making good threats. Now that they knew I was here, I opened the door and dashed inside.

The staircase in front of me was half safe to walk on, and the other side was highly unsafe. Hmm…

By the time the thugs got inside, I was halfway up the staircase – the bad side. They were shouting to one another things that I really can't repeat. But then – hooray! – my foot got wedged underneath a board. I pretended to be desperately trying to get my foot loose when they caught up to me.

One of them, who looked like a body builder on steroids, broke the board, splintering it. I was sure he had massive splinters in his hand, but I wasn't really concerned. I made sure my gun was still hidden as the body builder grabbed me and carried me, kicking and screaming, into the courtroom.

I was dropped on the floor right in front of him, and almost threw up. First of all, there was a stench in the air that was making my stomach churn. Secondly, his face was hideous. I was expecting his face to be pretty much demolished, but it was worse than I thought.

On the left side, he was a handsome (if old) D.A., but on the right side, he looked like he'd been dragged through a sawmill, then had a blowtorch taken to him. I could see his whole eye, like a white sphere on that side.

I spied his coin sitting next to him on his desk, which made this even easier than I thought. I stood up and assumed my normal demeanor. "So you're the great Two-Face? I must say, I'm not impressed."

I heard one of the guys who brought me in whisper to another, "Is she trying to get killed?"

No, I wasn't. But I walked in a circle around him, slipping past the desk, and placing his coin in my pocket and placing my regular coin in its place. There, now if he used it, the only thing he would ever get is a good outcome for me.

Then I was in front of him and was casually leaning against the wall of the room that we were standing in, which was painfully small.

"What do you want?" Two-Face asked.

"I just wanted to meet you, actually. I've been visiting all my neighbors, and I must say, they were a lot more impressive then you are."

"That does it." He grabbed my coin and flipped it in the air, catching it and slapping it on the back of his bad hand. Of course the good side came up. He looked at me for a second, then reluctantly put down his gun, which I was sure he would have set off if my coin hadn't been the one that he had flipped.

I yawned. Really, he just had some trouble with decisions. I decided that he was a waste of time and stood up. "Well, this has been fun and all, but I really need to get going. Nice meeting you!"

On the spur of the moment, I took out Two-Face's coin and flipped it to him. "Here. By yourself a life." Then, as he caught it, I sprinted for the door, and found myself in the courtroom. Okay, now to get out. I ran for the door in the courtroom that was still whole and slammed it behind me, hearing him now howling that 'no one steals from us'.

Technically, I borrowed it. I gave it back without any harm done to it, but obviously Mr. Doubles didn't care about that. The humiliation of him having used my coin and not telling the difference was enough that he was going to find me and make me pay for it.

I heard a slam and knew that him and his goons were after me. Grinning, I looked down at my waistline, where the long-sleeve piece tied around my waist hid the fact that I really had swiped one of his guns, too. Then a bullet zinged past me, causing me to stumble for a minute and risk a glance back. Of course. He had two guns, just perfect.

They were far enough behind me that I could try a trip up.

I was at the door and hazarded that I had about fifteen seconds before they caught up to me. I opened the door and quickly slammed it – with me still in the courthouse. I was down to ten seconds, so I quickly ran up the steps on the good side of the courthouse and then crouched in the shadows.

Two-Face and his men didn't even glance up. They just went dashing right out the door. It slammed shut and everything was quiet. I guess Two-Face only liked his men in there during a trial, which I certainly didn't want to be a part of.

I looked up the stairs. There was some light up there, and I cautiously crept up towards it. There was nobody there, but I had found my exit. The windows lead right into the courtroom. I smashed one, then winced as a shard of broken glass found its way into my shoulder. The kicking the window part had been brilliant, but not much more.

I pulled the piece out and inspected my shoulder. The wound wasn't deep, but it was going to bleed a lot. And that was a problem because then they could follow my trail. I pulled the top part of my uniform up and zipped up to my neck, actually glad that someone had sprung for the super-absorbent fabric.

I hopped through the window, keeping a look out for broken glass, and was on the platform right outside it, which was deserted. I spied a rope stretching from here to a small box in the center of the room. Making my way over to it, I grabbed it, swinging down until I was hanging from it.

The rope was digging into my hands, but I started going hand over hand towards the other side of the room. That's when my bad arm gave out. I plummeted to the floor, landing on feet, but that sent a jolt of pain through my right foot, the one I had put most of my weight on. That's when I heard the door outside slamming shut.

Oh, this was just great. I was stuck inside a courthouse with a maniac who wanted to kill me with a bruised foot and a cut arm. I looked around frantically, limping around to find a place to hide. Finally I spotted a door that looked like it led outside.

Every step leaving me wincing, I went over and opened it. It didn't lead outside, but into the basement. Since when did courthouses have basements? I glanced behind me, hoping that there was another way to get out. But I could hear someone approaching rapidly. Either it was stay here and get killed or hide and hope not to be found and then killed.

I slipped inside and quietly shut the door behind me.

The steps were hard on my foot, and clutching the railing was putting a lot of stress on my cut arm. But I finally made it to the bottom and almost jumped out of my skin when I heard muttering.

A voice that sounded vaguely familiar was chanting a bunch of old ditties about the dates. I personally didn't need it, but apparently this guy was somebody who couldn't remember what day it was, but that couldn't be true, because there were too many calendars in here to even make that possible…hmm…

"Calendar Man?"

I limped over to a position where I could actually see him. A rather obese man, with a brace and platform boot on one of his legs was sitting there holding a dissected calendar, whispering all the celebrated holidays in order that they became nationally recognized. I gave him a funny look, because I couldn't understand why anyone would want to know those sort of things.

At first he didn't notice me, until I sighed, and muttered, "My name's Valentine Damascus." I don't know where the name came from, but it got his attention.

"You are also named for a date? I thought that I was the only one."

He got up and bowed. "Julian Gregory Day, at your service."

"Named after the Julian and Gregorian calendars?"

He frowned. "I don't think that was my parent's intentions, but it suits me, don't you think?" He rubbed his head, and I noticed the scars on his head, looking suspiciously like calendar pages.

"Oh, yes." I could have stood there talking to him all day (note the sarcasm), but I really needed to get out of there before Two-Face figured out I had never left the building. "Mr. Day, do you know where there's an exit? I'm afraid that I angered Two-Face slightly."

He nodded, looking at me sympathetically. "I know how that is. There is a door behind the billboard. Dent never knew about it, but as you can see, I can't reach it from in here. I look forward to seeing you again, St. Valentine." I smiled, trying not to show how much I objected to him calling me a saint. Maybe that's because that's what the holiday was first called.

I pushed hard on a corner of the billboard and it rotated to show a space just big enough for me to squeeze through. As it closed behind me, I felt a tiny twinge of regret for leaving Mr. Day in his cell, but then reasoned that if he wanted out, he would have asked, in trade for the location of an exit.

Well, that was pretty much a bust, but then again, I didn't want to have to choose between my loyalties for too many people. I wasn't about to betray my dad, Catwoman, Joker and Harley, or Aiden. I shuddered, wondering why Aiden was on my list of people to which I had loyalties. Not wanting to think about it, I ran silently from the courthouse, praying that Two-Face didn't visit Mr. Day anytime soon, I didn't really trust him to not say he had seen a girl with the name of a holiday. Thinking about it, I wondered how many different names I was going to have.


	6. Penguin's Museum

"You're back!" Aiden stood up quickly as I opened the window and slid in. "Where did you go? I thought you'd be back ages ago."

"Around." Was my generic reply. I sat down on the worn couch in the middle of the apartment. I stretched out, thinking.

It was about ten minutes before I noticed Aiden staring at me. I sat up. "What?"

"You don't act like any girl I've ever met."

"And I'm glad of that."

"Haven't you ever, you know, hung out?"

"Why would I?"

"Have you ever had a boyfriend? Any friends at all?"

"I don't need friends, and relationships just aren't my thing."

He looked at me again, shaking his head. "I just don't get you, Ice. You say that you've lived here all your life, but you act as if this is all you've ever known, like there's nothing outside of it. Haven't you ever thought that there's something better than this?"

"No." I rearranged my body so that I was dangling off the end of the sofa, with my feet in the air. "Why would I even want to? This is my life here and now. And the past is the past." But this is my past. I added silently.

Aiden looked more confused than ever, looking out the window. I suddenly realized that he was seriously cute.

Of course, the bruises and the cut lip kind of took away from that, but he was tall, muscular, with dirty blonde hair and dreamy brown eyes. I looked away. I wasn't the type of girl to start the heart-fluttering thing at every cute boy that crossed my path. So why was it so hard to glance away?

"So…" I started, just trying to make conversation. "Did you have a girlfriend?"

He nodded. "I had just graduated high school. She and I had been together since sophomore year. I was going to ask her to marry me."

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say. Now that he was in here, she had probably moved on, not knowing whether he was alive or dead, and not knowing how much he loved her.

"Was she cute?"

Aiden nodded, his face lighting up. "Her name was Katie. I had a crush on her even longer than we were a couple. She was gorgeous, with dark hair like the clear sky at night, and eyes like sapphires in the dark-"

"Were you meaning to become a poet?" I asked, trying to get away from this topic that made my chest feel just like it did when somebody hit me when I wasn't looking. Anger was the closest thing I could think of. But I wasn't mad at Aiden. I was mad at this girl Katie. I pushed the emotions away before I could think about them too closely.

He laughed softly. "I don't know. Maybe. If I was, I would say in complete honesty that your eyes sparkle in the dark like Katie's, only colder."

I sat up slowly, not wanting to reveal what this made me feel like. It was like what I felt whenever Dad hugged me, or gave me a present. It made my whole body feel light, but I kept my tone neutral as I walked to the window and looked across the lightening sky. "Go on."

"I would say that your hair was like the finest golden silk. That you had something in you that made everyone stop and stare. That you were the…"

He trailed off. I didn't turn, afraid to look at him. "That I am the…"

"That you were the one I could learn to love." He whispered, suddenly right in my ear. I whirled around, but I didn't do anything as he leaned towards me, unwillingly leaning towards Aiden. I was scared, more scared then I'd ever been before. These emotions were so different from the ones I was used to.

Then his lips met mine. I leapt backward, scared to death. Aiden stood there, looking mortified. "I – I'm sorry."

I was out the window and gone before he could say anything else. And as I raced home against the growing light, I tried to ignore the tears tracking their way down my face.

When I got home, the first thing I did was go take a shower. While I was waiting for the water to warm up, I noticed in the bathroom mirror that my mascara and eyeliner had run, leaving black roads across my face. I wiped angrily at them, smudging the black and making it even worse. I gave up and pushed Aiden to the back of my mind. This was too weird to be dealt with in one night.

It was about two in the afternoon when I heard Dad yelling at me. I groaned and turned over, instantly regretting it, as the ice on the floor of my room reflected the sunlight and made me squint.

Well, after that there was no way I was going back to sleep. I yawned and stood up, brushing my hair as I slowly walked into the laboratory.

Dad came towards me and grabbed my arms in a vice-like grip. "Dad, you're hurting me!" I cried, dropping the hairbrush, which clattered on the ground.

"Isabelle, listen to me carefully." He said, and even with the vocal distorter I knew that he was dead serious. I tried to ignore how tight his grip on me was and looked him in the eyes (well, it was actually in the goggles, but that's beside the point.).

"Cobblepot is trying to get in here, and I can't hold him off much longer."

I was wide-awake now, and I know knew how serious the situation was. Penguin, should he get in here, was ruthless, and he wouldn't care that I was Mr. Freeze's daughter, or that my dad was Mr. Freeze.

"I want you to go back to your room and close the door behind you, do you understand?"

Dad was getting ready for desperate measures if he was going to have me shut my door. Since I lived in one of the cells, then closing the door meant locking me inside it, and I couldn't get out, but nobody else could get in either.

I nodded, and he released me, going back to whatever he had been doing at the lab.

I picked up my hairbrush and ran quickly back to my room, shutting the gate behind me. It made a clattering noise as it slid close, shutting with a sense of finality.

I sat down on the bed and rocked back and forth quietly, trying to pass the time until Dad would come by and let me out. The room seemed unnaturally cold, and I slid my leather jacket on over my orange jumpsuit. I winced as it grazed my injured shoulder.

I had disinfected it and wrapped it, but it was still pretty tender. It was a small cut, but deep, and while not serious, I was going to be in a whole lot of pain for a while longer.

I heard yelling outside and Dad's gun discharging. Silently I picked up the bat Harley had given me. At the time it didn't occur to me that I had a gun, but just the fact that I was armed made me feel better.

"Isabelle!"

Dad's voice brought me out of the trance I had been in. I stood up and walked over to him, but he snapped, "Stand back!"

I did as he asked, quickly back-tracking until I was standing on my bed.

He brought up his freeze gun and discharged it, covering the whole cell door with ice. Then, as I heard muffled voices approaching from the lab, Dad moved on, putting some distance between him and me.

"Ge' this door open!" A grouchy voice sounded from the other side. "The Icebox must ha' a reason fo' keepin' us ou'!" Oh, perfect. The Penguin was smart and Dad had been too slow.

A sound from the other side of the ice made me jump. Muddled black and white on the other side made it impossible to tell how many there were, but the ice was making it easier for them to break through.

The sounds of the ice breaking sounded like my doom spelled out for me, but then I shook my head. Where was the confident girl who stood up to Harley and Joker? The girl who stole Two-Face's coin? I needed to find that girl, who had flown since Aiden and I – you know what, I'm not even going to say what happened.

More and more cracks appeared until a chunk fell off. A thug stopped to pear in, but I hid myself out of his line of vision. He retreated and muffled words made them all continue their work.

As I waited, I took a deep breath. Okay, as soon as they had made a hole big enough for one of them to step through, I'll start going berserk, and take out everyone until Dad and I could meet up again.

Finally, they were done. A hole big enough for Bane to fit through was what they had made, and now they were going to come in here and find out why this area was so important to my dad.

One solitary guy came through and got a mouthful of my bat. I shuddered as one of his teeth flew out and hit me on the arm. But while he was howling in pain, I was out the door, only to face a thug with a mask on.

"You!" It was a low growl, but I recognized it. Big Brute was coming back to take his revenge, and this time he had friends. Oh, well, I beat him with even less experience before, and I can do it again.

I hefted my bat up onto my shoulder and smirked. Nothing like a person who wants to kill you to bring your confidence back. "Yeah, me. Now get over here so that I can kick your butt again."

"Now, tha's not very nice." A voice sounded from behind me. I whirled around, but I wasn't fast enough. An object came up to meet me and I was smashed against the wall.

It is so not fun when you get smashed against a wall. Think running full speed in a race to reach the wall and not putting your hands out. I staggered, trying to blink away the black spots impairing my vision. I could barely see Big Brute, not to mention Cobblepot, who had been the one to take an umbrella to my head.

Then I got my first look at Penguin. He was small, almost shorter than I was, with greasy slicked back hair, and a face that could in no universe be called beautiful. The monocle in his eye was broken, and I was at a loss as why he continued to use it. His clothes were fancy, a lot of furs and such, but I didn't have time to identify them all before he brought the umbrella around again.

I wasn't sure why he was the one attacking me instead of Big Brute, but when the umbrella came at me I did the natural thing. I leapt backwards. Then I felt Big Brute's arm encircling me. Oh, great. I should have done that triple back flip.

"Let me go!" I cried, struggling. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

Not that they knew, anyway.

"Oh, my dear." Penguin's voice grated across my ears, and I flinched as he pulled on a chunk of hair. "O' course you didn' do anythin' wrong. But my museum nee's a few mor' attractions. And I think you and the Icebox will make qui' the exhibit."

Then he hit me on the head again. Stars and dark circles popped in my vision. One more blow and I was out cold.

I woke up in a jungle. Well, it was a billboard of the jungle, but it was good enough. Then I noticed how small the cage was. It was barely bigger than a queen-sized bed, and I don't do small spaces.

My breathing was loud in the almost absolute silence that had settled over Penguin's quarters. I tried to calm myself. I'm in the jungle. The glass in front of me is just a gate. I've got plenty of room to breath. The walls aren't closing in on me.

My breathing slowed, and then I stood up and pressed my face against the glass. Across from me was an exhibit that looked like it had been put together by… oh.

Penguin was crazy! Well, we were all pretty crazy, but come on! How did he ever think he was going to capture Joker and put him in a cage?

The thought so boggled my mind that I took a look at the floor. I knew immediately that it was a map of Arkham City, and it took only a couple more seconds to figure out that he had laid out all the different territories and who controlled them.

Then I looked to my left, and gasped. My dad was standing in an exhibit that looked to be modeling Miami, as far as I could tell. He didn't look too good, and I almost went into hyperventilation before I realized he had one of his small cooling packets plugged into his chest, right where his heart was.

I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The hours went by and only a few people came in and out of the room. The men stayed away from me after one that brought me food and tried to kiss me earned a broken arm. And leg. And – well, let's just say that he probably needed a body cast after that.

I nearly flew into a rage the first time I heard someone press the button on the display case that was supposed to explain what the exhibit was about.

"This little Chri'mas flower is supposed to be the Icebox's brat. Now, I wonder whether she's actually loved, or if he's just trying to feel redeemed for 'aving created a life?"

But after that it was kind of like listening to a broken record. Whenever someone came by, I kind of ignored them, and just tried to meditate, when I found out some very cool things about myself that Dad probably didn't even know.

I found out I had a retinal scanner, which meant that even if someone was disguised with contact lenses, I would know exactly who they were. And I found out I could meditate and use my cyborg-brain just like a regular computer! I could write documents, listen to music, download content, and surf the web! Of course, I didn't really use anything but my music player, and that was just to keep myself busy.

Just in case you were wondering, I had on my music list, among others, "Disturbia" by Rihanna, "Beat It", by Michael Jackson, and "Circus", by Britney Spears. I guess it's obvious that they're all about crazy scenes and areas, and tough guys. Exactly like Arkham City. Anyway, most of the time I was slumped against the glass.

The days went by terribly slowly, and yes, I did try to escape, but when I tried to break open the glass display front, I bounced off my shoulder rather painfully. The glass didn't show any breaks in it, so I resigned myself to mouthing all the rerunning loudspeaker announcements.

"Welcome to the Cyrus Pinkney Natural History Institute."

"All visitors with a valid ticket or concession card can enjoy a discount at the nearby, world-famous Iceberg Lounge."

"All visitors must be searched as part of our ongoing commitment to keep you safe and protect the unique collection we have on display."

"All visitors should be sure to check out our latest attraction, "Dangers of the Deep", in the Aquatic Observation Chamber."

It was boring, and I really wanted to get out there and find someone to beat up, but something peaked my interest while I was senselessly staring at the wall. Now, because I'm half robot, I've got like this super-hearing and sight.

"I heard Bruce Wayne got put in Arkham City. I'd like to have five minutes with that rich playboy."

That sounded promising. I sat up a little straighter, trying to hear more, but they moved out of my range after that.

I'd seen pictures of Bruce Wayne, and he was kind of handsome, if that's what you liked. I wondered how he got in here and if he knew that the Monarch Theater, where his parents were killed, was right here in Arkham. Maybe so, maybe not. At times he seemed a little naïve to me.

I sunk down into my deep thoughts again, only to be brought out again about two hours later when someone was whispering a few corridors down, "Why's Batman in here?"

Okay, now thing's were getting interesting. Maybe Batman was in here to save Bruce Wayne, or something. I had gleaned enough information to know that Penguin had tried to capture Wayne, but he had like escaped, or done some kind of kung-fu move, I don't know!

But with Batman here, I wondered how this was going to affect Harley and Mr. J. Nothing else was helping him get better, so how was Joker going to make Batman help him? Joker's not the type to simply slip silently into death. He was going to go down fighting.

I wondered also if Batman was going to come over here and help save those cops that had been infiltrating Penguin's staff. Last I saw one of them, he looked worse than Aiden when I picked him up. No, don't think about Aiden. It makes you lose your focus. I told myself firmly.

It was a good couple more hours before I heard something that sounded promising.

"You're gonna have to kill me!" Probably one of the officers. The inmates loved hearing them scream. I'm not sure why, because personally, that's the part that is a mix between elation and repulsiveness.

Then I heard a scuffle, and then, "You're safe. For now." Was that Batman? I thought his voice would sound almost exactly like that. I whispered a few commands to keep track of that voice. Recognition software would really help me if I ever needed to find out his true identity.

"Thank God!" That was definitely the officer. Probably just saved from certain death.

"You may want to hold off thanking Him until after you've answered my question. Who are you?" I thought it was kind of obvious, but I listened even more closely.

"Sorry, man. I'm a cop. Gordon sent us in here. I'm in the 13th Precinct, part of the strike team. Been in here since the beginning." Huh. I'd better watch out for more cops, then. If they were around, then they could be a good way to find out some more sensitive information. But how to pretend I was one of them?

"If Gordon sent, you, you'll know the code?" A code? That would make this way easier!

"Oh, yeah, yeah! He said…oh man, what was it?" Come on, remember the code! I was silently begging. How did people survive with such forgetful minds?

"The code! Now!" Oh, no. If this guy got it wrong, he was toast now!

"It's…'Sarah'! He said to tell you the code is 'Sarah'." Sarah? Oh… Commissioner Gordon's wife! I thought she was dead, but maybe that was the point. I didn't know whether that was the wife Joker killed, or the one before it. But no matter, all I needed was the code.

"You're safe, officer." He didn't open up at all even after the code. I wished I could see his face. He sounded kind of emotionless.

"It's Jones, Batman. Elvis Jones." Elvis? I giggled for a second. But the name Batman sobered me. So now I knew it was Batman, but what would he do if he found Dad?

"Gordon always said he was planning on sending your team in." He did? This was a lot of information that could be useful.

"He wanted to know what was going on in here. I guess we found out. There were ten of us. Hopefully, there still are." I'm betting not. I sang silently. Knowing Penguin, they were going to be dead meat once he found out Batman was in here.

"I told Gordon it was too dangerous to send you in. Stay here. If the rest of your team is alive, I'll find them." I hoped he would find me, too, and just let me out and not press the exhibit button. I didn't need the Batman to tell the police that I was around at all. That would be the exact kind of bad rep I didn't need, but wanted badly.


	7. The Tail of the Bat

Batman was quiet for a few minutes after that, and then I noticed the yelling that I should have noticed much sooner. Because I was already smashed against the glass, I closed my eyes and tried to get a mental picture. The diagrams that had been implanted let me know the whole layout of this museum. And based on my calculations, they were at the grand staircase.

Maybe they were bing held back by something, because all the yelling began at a certain place, and didn't go any further forward, as if… my eyes flew open. The old security doors! They were using those to keep all those crazy people from destroying everything in that room!

I'm wasn't sure why Penguin was holding them back, besides the fact that they would probably wreck his exhibits, so I closed my eyes again and listened.

The first thing that came to my ears was a desperate voice. "Help… me." Huh. Must be one of those cops. I was about to file the voiceprint when a shot rang out. I could have heard it even without my enhanced hearing. Okay, knowing Cobblepot, that cop was dead now. I discarded the voiceprint and kept on listening.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you. Show 'im what we've got." There was a pause. I was guessing that maybe Batman was about to attack him, but then Cobblepot showed him another police officer or something. Cobblepot spoke up again. "So, Batman. You 'ere for the cops? The Ice-Man? Or me?" He gave out a long, evil laugh that sent shivers up my spine.

"I was only here for Fries and hostages. But now… I'm taking you down too." I was about to bet that Cobblepot was going to be dead meat when his reply came through.

"Ooh, aren't you scary?" Another long laugh. Penguin, you're not the Joker! I wanted to scream. Stop acting like him!

"You're about to find out." Wow, that was a nice line. I was going to have to remember it.

"Am I really?" A pause. Cobblepot was probably strutting around the top of the grand staircase. "Listen, I'm what you might call, a collector." Another pause. This time I agreed with him. He had collected the Fries family, for sure!

"If someone wants it, I like to think… I've got it. And, if I don't, I'll get it. So here's the thing. I've got a cabinet back there with your name on it, just waiting to be filled. And, as luck would have it, here you are, standing just where I want you." A laugh. They really sounded evil, not like Joker's laugh, which made you want to laugh along. This was a really scary laugh, the one of a gangster. Technically, he was, but that's beside the point!

The fact that he wanted Batman in an exhibit just proved that he needed a straitjacket and a padded cell. "So, what do you think? Are gonna be a good boy and give up nicely?" I was betting not, but I suppose he needed to hear it out loud.

"You are not giving orders here any more, Cobblepot." Thought so. But I was really loving Batman's dialogue, I was going to have to watch him a bit and find out what made him so scary, so that I was someday I would be feared as he was.

"I was hoping you'd say that. Look around you. This horrible bunch of psychopaths are all begging to join up with me, but unfortunately for them, I only take the best. And today, the best means whoever can kill you. Come on out lads! It's initiation time! " If I didn't know that nobody, even with much better odds in their favor, had ever been able to kill Batman, I'd say he was toast.

But the next few minutes, I'd say about fifteen, I could hear all this yelling and screaming. None of them matched my print of the Dark Knight's voice, though, so I was betting they were getting their butts whooped.

"You weren't supposed to do that, Batman." He must have beaten everyone. Now I had some serious respect for the Bat. "You're forcing me to bring out the big guns." There was a pause, then my ears were assaulted with the sounds of metal screeching and animalistic roars. "Aw, he doesn't look happy to see you, Batman. Good luck!" I could see why Joker doesn't like that guy. He didn't have any good ideas for making the Batman's life go out with a bang.

From what Penguin was saying, this new threat was only one person. By my calculations, Batman had just beaten over thirty guys, so even if this guy was as strong as Bane, Batman had the advantage.

Now that I knew how good Batman was, maybe I would try to track him and watch him beat up a couple guys. I mean, you know, after I got out of this display case.

Then all was quiet. He was out of range of my hearing, and that was the only lead I had on him.

Bored, I checked my foot and shoulder. The shoulder was just about functional; there was only a thin line of what had once been a deep cut. Of course, I now had a scar, but I thought it looked kind of cool. My heel had only a faint bruise on it, and I could walk without a limp. It was still a bit sore, but I could manage.

Then, wonder of wonders, Batman walked in. I stood up quickly, pressing myself against the glass, trying to get a retinal scan. He was silent and menacing, and had a charisma that rivaled Joker's to intimidate.

He looked at me, then moved along, and pressed the button on the display that Dad was in.

Penguin's voice, which I dearly despised now, sounded out around the room. "Surely no introduction is necessary. A prize-winning cryogenic scientist pushed to the edge of sanity by a desire to help his poor, dying wife… Or an old man, captured by me and stuck on a grill?" He laughed, a long slow, mocking laugh.

No emotion from Batman, and he moved onto a small wall between the doorway and sprayed something onto the wall. He proceeded to back up and press what I realized was a detonator. I backed up, but not quickly enough. A flying bit of debris hit the glass where my forehead had been resting. I was knocked backwards, unconscious and bleeding on my temple.

I woke up to the sound of breaking glass. My vision was blurry as I opened my eyes, only to leap back as my dad put his hand right through the display case, and shattering me with little pieces of glass, which didn't cut me, but did leave a stinging feeling on my hands, upraised to protect my head and my bare arms.

I stood up and hopped out of the exhibit, ignoring Dad's outstretched hand. "You know, I'm sure there was a button somewhere." I grumbled.

"Isabelle, go find a place to hide. Listen if you must, but don't let the Batman see you."

I nodded my head, playing the obedient daughter. I had come to a realization. I wasn't his daughter to him. I was a gift, a Christmas puppy, something that he didn't really want but was hoping that I would be a wonderful surprise for Mom when she woke up. I was nothing to him but something to be tolerated for his wife's sake.

I followed him out into the main corridor, then climbed on top of a display case and waited. Eventually some cops came out, but they ignored Dad and most likely didn't even see me.

Then Batman came out of a doorway, dragging someone behind him. Dad stood where he was, but made one thing perfectly clear.

"Where is Cobblepot?" I was really glad I wasn't Penguin at that point. Dad knows how to bring the hurt.

Batman threw Cobblepot at Dad's feet. Penguin looked at him like he was the thing to be scared of."Well, look who it is. Mister Fr…" Dad stepped on his hand, putting his full weight, suit and all, on Cobblepot's arm. Penguin howled and squirmed like a little girl in a tickle fight. That's the best way I can describe it.

Batman watched for a bit, then spoke up. "Enough." Dad didn't stop, so Batman turned it up a notch. "Freeze! Enough."

"Of course." Dad replied coolly. He took his foot off of Penguin's hand, then picked him up and slammed him against the exhibit behind Dad. "You will regret what you did, Mr. Cobblepot." He dragged Cobblepot over to a display with a lot of cardboard cutouts and touched a button, lowering the glass, threw him in the display, then rolled up the glass. I wanted to yell at him, "You knew about that and yet you felt the need to shatter my exhibit? I wanted to do that!"

Batman turned attention to my father."The cure, Freeze." The cure? I did a quick analysis. He had the same disease as Mr. J! I smirked. Joker was quite the manipulator indeed.

"There isn't one." Dad replied. I, for one, was glad that Batman wasn't going to get it, but I sure wanted to get it for Mr. J. He was the one who was my real family. He and Harley were my family. I wasn't their puppy.

"What?" Oh, no. Now Batman was mad. That was never good.

"Perhaps I should elaborate. Creating an antidote to the disease that affects the clown was easy. Unfortunately, the cure degrades to quickly. It needs a restorative element, some kind of reforming enzyme. Without it, it breaks down before it can help its host." I got that. So, Mr. J had employed Dad to make a cure, not Batman.

Batman cocked his head at the diagram Dad was showing him. "I've seen this before." He said, trying to remember.

"Finding a suitable enzyme is not the only problem. It needs to be adapted, bonded to human DNA. That will take decades. Time it appears you do not have." So Dad knew that Batman had the disease, also.

"What if I told you I know a man has been exposed to that enzyme for centuries?" Huh? I leaned in closer to hear better.

"What man?" My dad sounded curious, same as I was.

"His name is Ra's Al Ghul." Funny name, he sounded rather Asian. Maybe something from Asia Minor.

"Bring him to me. All I need is a sample of his blood. It is your only hope." I didn't know about it being Batman's only hope, but when it came to science, I knew better that disregard my father's word.

"Ra's Al Ghul is dead." Oh, well, that was just great. The only man who could help was six feet under the ground. Thanks for bringing him up, B-man!

"Then you, and the clown, are doomed." And now onto the drama, Dad. This is the best way to make friends; by telling them they're going to die.

"Not exactly. I need someone to tell me where the body is… Then I can go wake him up." Then the exhibit that Dad had slammed Penguin against burst forward. I watched as a woman dressed in the style of ancient ninjas or something rolled out of the display case. She was holding her shoulder. I grimaced. I knew that glass cut easily and bled a lot. Unless she was careful, she was going to be tracking blood everywhere for the next couple hours.

In an exotic accent, the woman exclaimed,"Blasphemer! You are not worthy to speak of the great Ra's Al Ghul!" Huh. I guess this Al Ghul person ran a cult or something of the sort. The woman ran towards the staircase, but instead of taking the regular staircase, leapt on top of an exhibit and then to the top of the staircase and out the door. I grinned. She just gave me more ammunition than she would ever know.

"You are a fool, Batman. You have let your only hope escape." My dad said solemnly. I hated to admit it, but he was right. Batman had just stood there while that woman left with the only lead that we both had on curing the people close to us.

"No, Victor." Batman walked over to the broken glass. "If Ra's Al Ghul is in Arkham City, I now have a trail right to him." He dabbed some fingers in the blood pooled on the ground. In a few seconds, I understood exactly what he meant. He was going to use the blood flowing out from her shoulder to track her. Boy, he was smart!

Batman walked a bit away from Dad and hit what must have been a radio frequency. "Oracle, change of plans. I'm going after the League of Assassins." Who as Oracle? Maybe his information source. I tried to listen to Oracle's reply, but for some reason, my enhanced hearing wasn't working. I contented myself with simply piecing together the details with what I could hear.

"Penguin had one of the League's assassins imprisoned in the museum. I recognized the insignia. She's a member of Talia's elite guard." Talia? Who was that? And that woman was an assassin? If Batman was going to track her, then I was following him, and then gain knowledge from both him and her. I would have a lot more knowledge by the end of this endeavor then I would ever be able to learn by watching movies.

"Talia is not the goal, Barbara. I've uploaded Freeze's unfinished cure. It looks like the answer is – " Oh… I was guessing that this Talia and Batman had some history. And whoever was on the other end cut off Batman before he could answer. He signed off the network right after that.

I whispered a few commands, storing the name Barbara away for future research. Batman may not have thought he could have given away very much with just a name, but he had. If I kept a close eye on him, then maybe I'd be able to deduce whom he really was. I had no intention of revealing it, but come on, who doesn't want to know who he really is?

Batman walked past my dad, who spoke up and voiced a question that both of us were begging for the answer to.

"Are you sure this man can provide the missing ingredient?"

"I've met Ra's Al Ghul many times. He claims to be over six hundred years old, And I believe him. Which means something is keeping him alive." Six hundred? That was a lot of candles. I really wanted to meet this League now, but to find them, I had to follow Batman, so I really wanted him to get on with it.

"Let us hope you are correct Batman. After all, your life depends on it." Yeah, Dad's kind of the bringer of dooms day news.

Batman left after that, walking up the staircase slowly. I'm not sure why he wasn't running; if the assassin stopped bleeding or figured out she was leaving a trail before he could figure out another way to track her, I was going to lose at least one fabulous teacher.

He walked up to a wall and spread his goo on it again. This time I was prepared, and ducked behind a display case as the wall exploded. Batman walked forward, and I almost followed when I noticed that that room was full of cops. If I was going to get past them, it was time to go into super stealth mode. I looked around, found the side of the room most of the cops were avoiding, or at least not in.

Quietly I snuck as far into the shadows as I could and followed the silent, slowly walking Dark Knight. He moved a little faster than I was able to, but he stopped to talk to one of the cops. Everyone else was looking at them, so I took the opportunity to open up the door and slide out into the chilly night air, shutting the door quietly behind me.

Batman came out shortly afterwards, and took a left, heading across the lawn towards a staircase. I trailed along behind, keeping my scanning technology switched on. That's when I learned something else. The disease that both Mr. J and Batman had made them give off an extraordinary amount of heat. About two or three degrees more. Of course, normally that doesn't sound like too much more, but with body temperature, the slightest degree difference can make all the difference. Anyway, that made me notice that I could see the heat, and he was leaving a trail wherever he went, making it possible to trace him, even if I went off to do something else.

He was up the staircase now, and I waited a couple of seconds, then quickly and quietly made my way up to the top of the staircase, which was connected to something that reminded me of a stone catwalk, over the roof of the Iceberg Lounge. At least, I think it was the Iceberg Lounge….

Anyway, I winced as a snap like celery being broken sounded out. Apparently, Batman had found some friends to play with. I snuck around to the corner of the railing and peaked out, my eyes recording everything he was doing. The kicking, the punching, the disarming, I watched it all, learning more with each second. I was right when I thought I could learn a lot from him. Now instead of only being able to take out three guys with difficulty and no weapons, I bet I could take out five guys with guns without much difficulty.

Eventually, he had laid everyone out flat, and stepped over them, following what I assumed was the assassin's trail. Stepping quickly as to not lose speed, I reached into the pockets that were inside my prison uniform. Most people don't even know they're there. But they were useful, and sure enough, the thugs hadn't searched me, naturally assuming there was no way I could hide anything in a jumpsuit without pockets. Yeah, serves you right for kidnapping the daughter of a brilliant scientist.

I took out my whip and my cat gloves, sliding them on as I walked. You never know when you might need to climb up a wall.

My suspicions were correct, and I tailed Batman on top of the glass roof, down a staircase, over a bridge, over the edge of a balcony, to the top of the building across the street, down a staircase.

I followed him onto the top of a ventilation tube, and then to a roof of a building. I hid behind a cooling unit and watched him.

He never saw her coming, but I did. She hit him so hard that he fell to his knees. I could imagine what it felt like, seeing as I had gotten hit on the head quite a few times, and I imagined his vision was pretty blurry right about now.

Then the assassin was on the run again, and when Batman had recovered he followed her, with me trailing close behind. We made it to the building across the street, and then the assassin came out of nowhere, taking Batman to the ground and holding a sword – I think it's called a katana – up against his throat.

"You only continue to live because the great Ra's Al Ghul allows it." She hissed. Now I was getting some ideas. Al Ghul was in charge, and he really wanted Batman to live for some reason, I didn't really know what, but this assassin wasn't allowed to touch him.

Then two more assassins appear silently. I was about to be ready to fight in case they noticed me, when a whistle catches their attention. I whirl around too, terrified that the whistler caught me stalking Batman.

A boy in red, wearing a black cape and hood, takes a stick and bam! Two assassins down in under five seconds. I was impressed now. Not everyone used just their fists, and frankly, I'd rather use something other than my fists to fight. So Robin was somebody to keep track of. Yes, I know who Robin is. I have enough images stored to know the Boy Wonder when I see him.

"Call him off." The last assassin hisses, and she's the one on top of Batman.

"I can take her." Robin holds his staff in a ready position. A kid about the age I'm supposed to be, standing up to an assassin? He was as cocky as my brother, Drake.

"Stand down." Batman spoke up from his position on the ground. Robin hesitated, then did as Batman asked. Okay…Maybe not as cocky as Drake. He never listened, except if it was for something he wanted to do.

The assassin stood up, and her two friends stood up also. I guess they were just stunned. The assassin gave on final warning before leaving. "Do not follow us."

Batman stood up slowly, then turned to Robin with a look of disapproval. "I didn't need your help." Huh. I thought he kinda did. Maybe it some kind of Bat-Ploy.

"Really? That's not what it looked like from where I was standing." And… we're back to thinking he was Drake's long lost twin.

"I had it under control. Why did Alfred send you?" Alfred? Another name that I could use to find out who the Bat truly was.

"He was worried about you." 'Alfred' worried about Batman? I wished I could say somebody worried about me for something more than just their own gain.

Batman took a vial of blood and tossed it to Robin, who looked down at it carefully. "Take this. Get it analyzed and start searching hospitals and emergency rooms. Anyone with this blood in them will be dead in under 24 hours." I was betting it was more of that poison stuff that was in both him and Mr. J.

"Whose blood is it?" There was an uncomfortable pause. "Oh… it's yours, isn't it?" He put the vial away and started to walk towards the cooling unit I had taken refuge behind. I scooted back further, out of his sight, and listened. "I'll get it to the hospitals and come back here. You need my help here." Now Batman needed his help? This kid was really attached to his father.

"I can handle it. You're needed in Gotham. Things could get worse. Much worse." That was something to look forward too, but Robin had turned back to Batman in a bit of a panic.

"You think? If Strange knows who you really are, what happens when he tells everyone? How will you…" The man who ran Arkham City knew the Batman's identity? That was juicy. I peeked out and saw Batman had stopped Robin's questioning, grabbing him by the forearms.

"Trust me. I'll find a way." Oh, yeah. I forgot that Batman always found a way. Robin, taking it as an answer, began to walk away.

"If you need me, you know where I am."

"I know." Batman almost cut him off, and then gave him an order. "Now go!" Robin nodded, then jumped off a ledge. Batman began going in the opposite direction, which left me in a dilemma. I really wanted to go and talk with the Boy Wonder, but Batman has been teaching me so much. I glanced after Batman, then shrugged. I could pick the trail up later. Right now, it was time to talk to Robin.

I walked over to the edge he'd jumped off of, and watched him walking towards the fence, which happened to be close by. I jumped down also and took a short cut, meaning to meet him at a special place in a few minutes. Watch out, Robin. I thought, a smile slowly spreading over my face as I ran to a place that I knew he'd pass. You're about to meet the bad girl.


	8. A Tale About A Robin

Robin was just passing me when I commented to him lazily, "Your dad is pretty sick, huh?"

Suddenly, I found myself with a staff poised right between my eyes. "Easy, easy!" I called out, pushing the staff away from my face. "I just want to talk."

"Yeah, and I'm the Easter bunny." He growled, trying to do an impression of the Bat, which was just cute.

I gasped, and exclaimed in mock belief, "So you're the one who forgot to bring me treats for Easter last year!" I sobered down after that, and said sincerely, "No, seriously. I just want to talk for a bit."

Robin glanced over his shoulder. "Listen, I've got something that I really need to take-"

"That blood sample?" I interrupted. "That's a concentrated version. The type that's the kind that Joker's been shipping out is his blood. Your dad just got a concentrated shot. Joker wants him and your dad to be on the same time table."

He looked at me, probably looking for any signs that I was lying to him. Then he sat down heavily. "How do you know that?" He asked, probably getting ready for a long story.

"A girl has her ways." I looked at my nails as I spoke. "But anyway, those people in the hospitals will be fine for a few more weeks. Why don't you take a little break? Your dad's not going to find out."

"He's not my dad, and he has his ways." Robin retorted.

I shrugged. "Even if he's not your blood, did he raise you? Does your blood father love you the same way your foster father does? Mine sure doesn't."

Robin puzzled over it for a few seconds, then asked me a question. "So… aren't you a little young to be here?" That made me groan, placing my head between my knees.

"Is that a touchy subject?" He asked, looking concerned.

"No, it's just that everyone says that. Nobody thinks that I'm old enough to be in here. News Flash: Strange doesn't care what goes on in here. As long as he's the top dog, he doesn't care that a potentially under-age is in here."

Robin shrugged. "I guess you're right. What's your name?" He asked as if it had just occurred to him.

"Isabelle." I didn't give him my nickname because if he thought I was a nice person, then if I ever got thrown in the Asylum once this place was nothing but rubble (Even I know there's no way this place is going to last.), he could vouch for either my sanity or my clean record.

"What, no cool nickname?" He teased. I looked at him sideways. He had a look on his face that made me realize he was flirting with me! Okay, one, that was just plain creepy. And two, no dating on the other side of the law. Dad had made that pretty clear in his programming.

But two could play that game. "Well, you can call me Ice if you want." I said teasingly. "My sister calls me Izzy. Her boyfriend calls me 'kid'. I'm Isabelle to my dad. Take your pick."

He looked surprised. "Your whole family's in here?" He asked.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't think I would have mentioned that if it wasn't at all relevant. But anyway, yeah, my sister is about…. twenty? Twenty-five? I don't really pay attention. Since they aren't under-age, and don't even look like it, the TYGER officers assume that I'm just small for my age. Which isn't true."

"How old are you, then?"

I winced. I probably should have seen that coming, so I answered him, leaving out everything but the number. "Sixteen."

Silence. Then he asked, "Aren't you in danger out here on your own?"

I turned to him slowly. I smiled coyly, trying to flirt again. Then I grabbed his wrist and flipped him to the ground. I kneeled over him, letting my hair drape all over his masked face, and taking the blocking of his vision to my advantage, and took a quick retinal, knowing that my eyes would flash completely electric blue for a few seconds.

"Does it look like I need any help?" I teased, getting off him, and offering Robin my hand.

"I guess not." His fingerless-gloved hand grabbed onto my hand, and I pulled him up, grunting as I pulled him up. For only about my supposed age, he was heavy. I was guessing it had to do with the fact that he was wearing something like body armor. Could stop a bullet from doing any real damage, like killing damage, but you could still get a nasty bruise from one of those bullets.

"Have you been here a long time?" He asked.

"Almost since the beginning." I replied casually. "Once you know how to survive, it's pretty easy."

Another silence. I finally looked at him, seeing that he was again scrutinizing me closely. I thought of something I wanted to mention, and thought it would be a nice way to build Robin's trust. "You know, Robin is too formal. I think I'll call you Drake."

Somebody else might have missed his stiffening and the very well disguised fear as he asked, "And why would you call me that?"

Pretending to not notice, I replied innocently, "You remind me of my brother Drake. He died a while ago. He was just like you. Arrogant, a flirt, and confident."

The silence stretched just long enough for it to become awkward, when I said lowly, "It's a compliment."

"Um… thanks." He said, looking a bit uncomfortable. I guess that not many people stuck around long enough to give him a nickname. Just my luck, I was one of those people who just needs to have a relatively normal name. I know, I know, Pirouette and Joker aren't really even close to normal, Mr. J and Pirou are a little more normal, no?

"So, Drake, how long have you and the Bat been together?" I asked, climbing on top of an electrical box and laying there, flopping my head sideways to look at him.

"That's kind of confidential information." He informed me. I rolled over and gave him a skeptical glance.

"What isn't? Okay, let's make a deal. I'll ask you a question, and if you can answer it, then I'll tell you what my answer to that question is. Then you ask the question, I'll answer it, then you tell me your answer. Okay…. What's your favorite color?"

He pondered for a moment, then replied, "Red." I should have expected that, but I nodded, a patch of bright red blood coming to mind. But then he continued, "Like wine." Oh. I shifted the blood to a thinner consistency, and then darkened it to a maroon shade. "Your turn. What's your favorite color?"

"Blue." I answered immediately. "A light, light blue, almost white."

"What's your favorite food?"

"Canned peaches. Yours?"

"Chocolate chip cookies."

"Favorite name?"

"Stephanie."

"Aiden." My answer made my cheeks flush as I thought of the kiss we had almost shared. I was pretty sure that I was falling in love with the wimp by now, and strangely, I was okay with that.

"He your boyfriend?" Drake asked.

I shook my head. "Maybe someday, but right now, I'm trying to help him not get killed. Is it a sign of weakness to fall in love with someone so much weaker than we are?"

"I never saw it as mattering. If I have or had a girlfriend, then they never knew about this side of my life. I was maybe a bit stronger than them, but not by much."

"As you can see, I don't wear a mask." I gestured to my face. "I wonder sometimes whether it's a good thing for me to be so much stronger than Aiden. I don't want to have to protect him every time we get attacked. One, I won't be able to keep everyone off of him as well as me, no matter how good I am. And two, I think it'll probably make him feel a bit like a weakling, and that he's losing his masculinity because I'm better than him."

"Well, maybe you can teach him how to be better. I mean, he can't be that hopeless, can he?"

I shook my head, not trusting my voice. But the quaver was still there when I whispered; "I'm scared that he's not going to make it out of here alive."

"Hey," Drake placed his hand over mine, not caring that it was a bit of a more romantic movement, and we had just met. "With you for a teacher, he's going to be just fine. And I'll look for an Aiden when this place finally gets torn down."

"You believe that this place can't stay up much longer, too?"

"I know so." He said with confidence.

That's when our little comforting moment was cut short as his earpiece started squawking at him. I tried to listen, but again I wasn't getting anything.

"Oracle, I'm going, just got sidetracked. Don't worry; I'll have the blood sample to you in just a few hours. I had to stop and take care of something." He winked at me, then turned his attention back to 'Oracle', whoever that was. "Yeah, I'm on my way now. See you in a bit." He signed off and turned back to me. "I guess I'll see you later. If I can, I'll come back in a week. Meet you on top of the Ace Chemicals building?"

"I'll be there." He nodded and ran away, heading for the fence once again, dropping out of sight over the edge of the building.

I left for Aiden's straight after that. Talking with Drake made me realize that the apocalypse of this wonderful place was imminent, and I was betting within the next two weeks they would start tearing down the walls.

I was scared. This was my haven, the only world I had ever known, and if I lost it, what would happen then? Would I get a padded cell, a straightjacket, and a psychologist who only cares about writing the tell-all book about the first child of the Rogues? I knew that soon the other Rogues would start thinking about their legacy. Starting a family was a good way to make sure that there would always be someone to continue your work.

I knew Harley had wanted kids for a long time, but would Joker survive long enough to give her what she wanted? It was terrifying, one, because with Joker gone, Harley was just going to become more and more unstable. Two, what would Harley and Pirouette be without the Joker? It's a punch line without a joke.

Those questions kept me running as fast as I could towards Aiden's place. As much as I didn't want to, I knew that if the walls started coming down, he would be an easy target for a hostage, no matter how much I had taught him.

Aiden looked up from his contemplative pose on the couch when I climbed through the window, jumping up when he saw it was me. "Ice!"

I cut him off. "I'm done keeping secrets. Please, call me Isabelle. And I want to show you something. Follow me."

I stepped out of his window again, watching him as he followed me, struggling a bit to fit his tall body through the small window. Finally he made it through, and followed me, making a ton of racket getting down the ladder, cursing quietly, at least, not yelling, when his foot got stuck. I rolled my eyes, and reached up and pulled his foot loose. "If you really want to see what I have to show you, then try not to alert everyone within a ten mile radius to the fact that we're here."

He shut up and even though I could still hear him, he was a little quieter. Nobody who wasn't listening intently would hear us. I pulled him quickly behind me through the streets, heading for the tall dome of the GCPD building.

Before I opened the door, I turned to him and very seriously laid down a few rules. "Don't say anything until after we get to my room, and above all, do not let my dad know you're here. He got a bit of a trigger finger."

Aiden nodded, but his focus was on the building. "You live in a police headquarters?" He asked. "Seems kind of ironic, don't you think?"

I shrugged. He had been pretty compliant, not asking any questions about why I had kept my real name a secret, or what I wanted to show him. If he was my boyfriend, I would really appreciate that, but for right now, I pushed that thought out of my mind and pushed the door open, calling out loudly, "Dad! I'm home!"

A small pause in the clatter that was coming from the lab was all the response I got. Then it resumed, without Dad even asking how my day was or anything. Again, I was the Christmas puppy.

"Come on." I grabbed his arm, dragging him down the corridors to my room, glancing around at every little noise. Finally we got to my room and I sat down on my bed, watching Aiden as he looked over the sparse furniture. "Cozy." He commented. "Okay, what was it that you wanted to show me?"

He sat down on the far side of the bed, looking right at me. But when I opened my mouth, he pressed his finger against my lips, continuing, "No, wait. I want some answers first. Did you leave me for so long because of that kiss? Why did you give me a nickname that you don't even like? And why in the world is your house such a secret?"

I let him finish, then took his hand gently from my lips. I didn't know where to start, so I decided to show him. "Follow me." I led him down a couple corridors, then, put a hand over his mouth before letting him look in the laboratory. It was a good idea, because he made a strangled sound when he saw my dad looking at the screens almost right in front of us. All he had to do was look up and he would see both of us. But then he turned around, and I yanked Aiden out of sight, then led him back to my room, all the time he was hyperventilating, gulping like a fish.

When we got back to my bedroom, I pushed him onto my bed and slapped him. It snapped him out of his shock, but then he looked at me with hurt and shock. "You slapped me!"

"You were in shock!" I retorted.

"I think you could have given me a little more warning that you lived with Mr. Freeze!"

I snapped then, and turned to him in anger. "See, this is why I didn't tell you that my dad was Victor Fries! You would have judged me for what my father is, not who I am! Sure, he's a villain, but so am I!"

"If you're a villain, then why didn't you leave me to die?" He snapped.

I opened my mouth to retort that his cries of pain had been grating against my nerves, then realized that was an invalid argument, because I could have just moved. The fact was, somewhere deep down, I had cared enough to save him. But that was such a novel idea that I grabbed my head and began to rock back and forth, thinking about all that I had done. Sure, I cared about Harley and Mr. J, but I had a reason to care about them! Aiden was my toy, something to protect and teach, something that could be thrown away when too worn or too beat up to be of any use.

"Isabelle." I felt his hand on my shoulder. "I never wanted to be saved by you, and yet, here I am. I think that maybe –"

"Don't tell me that it's destiny, or fate!" I snapped, my tear-filled eyes just being able to see his handsome face and long blonde hair. "I don't believe in either of those! Let's face it, I'm a wimp."

"No, you're not a wimp." He got off my bed and knelt in front of me, grabbing both sides of my head, making me look into his gorgeous brown eyes. I tried feebly yanking my gaze away. Unfortunately, my small effort was nothing compared with the strength that he was exerting. "You're the most kick-butt, tough, sassy girl I've ever met, and I love you!"

I almost didn't register anything but his last statement. "You…you love me?" I whispered, wiping the tears from my wet cheeks.

"Yes, you idiot. Are you really that deeply buried within the battle scars not to see that?" He pulled me gently down from the bed, and when I was kneeling next to him, he reached a hand out and caressed my hair, leaning towards me. This time, I hesitantly leaned forward, but leaned forward nonetheless, and kissed him. I felt so different in that moment. For the first time, I felt warm inside, as if sparks had ignited a fire within me.

But then an explosion shook the place and I was thrown backward, Aiden landing on top of me. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the position we were in, but Aiden brushed my lips softly one more time and stood up, pulling me to my feet behind him.

I would have said some snarky comment about being my gentleman, but another explosion shook the house, and I almost lost my balance again. We both shared a glance and ran outside. The sight that met our eyes made us both stop and stare.

The whole night was alight with fire.


	9. Joker The Immortal

I gasped, gazing out at the night. My home was being destroyed. The helicopters overhead were circling around, dropping bombs on the city. A huge plume of fire lit up the dirty streets and threw red shadows across Aiden's face that looked as if he had been shot by my dad's gun.

His face was motionless in an expression of shock. Nothing else came out of it, but I grabbed his arm and yanked it.

"Come on! We've got to get out of here!" I didn't know where we'd go, or how we would escape the bombs, but I knew that I had to get Aiden back to his apartment building, then go and check on Joker and Harley.

We ran. Aiden yelled a couple of times as we heard a bomb to our right, to our left, or behind us or in front of us, which made both of us slow down a bit, not wanting to go into that flaming ball that had once been our city.

The rush of adrenaline was fueled by my heartbeat, which I was sure was louder than any of the bombs. I ran faster, pulling the slug behind me. Another bomb went off to one side and a building collapsed. I didn't want to imagine it as Aiden's building, but the image came unbidden to my mind: the roof bending in on itself, the corners touching and then crumbling, burying Aiden underneath the rubble.

I shook my head scolding myself. When Aiden said he loved me, he must have meant like a schoolboy crush. He'd only known me for what? A month? Five weeks? And I would have freely admitted that even though I had kissed him and it had felt great, I was very sure if I kissed another guy, it feel very much the same. Though I shuddered as I thought about my options.

The image of kissing the Joker came up first. Not only would I probably get shot for that, but Harley would never forgive me. As far as I had seen, she would never get the courage to kiss her boyfriend. Then kissing Two-Face. Okay, now I was just getting ridiculous. These guys were at least five times my age, most of the old enough to be my dad! But if I was going to kiss somebody else… Probably I'd take my chances with Mr. J, or else find an ordinary inmate.

We arrived at his apartment building out of breath, and I let him climb up the ladder first. I followed close behind him, wincing as the explosions shook the building and by extension, the ladder. It shook so much that I was afraid to let go to move my hand up to the next rung. I could only imagine how Aiden felt. But he kept on going and soon made it through the window back into the penthouse.

I wasn't sure that this was the safest place for Aiden to be, but I didn't have any other options. It certainly wasn't an option to take him to my dad's place, or to Harley's. I was pretty sure he'd be shot on sight if I took him to the courthouse or the museum. Catwoman probably wouldn't take him in, either. That only left his place.

I stiffened. Harley! What was happening at the steel mill? I had to get over there! I grabbed my backpack, which I had had the foresight to bring with me from my house. Telling Aiden I had some friends I had to check up on, I made a quick trip to the bathroom and hurriedly pulled on the outfit, smeared the makeup on, but took some time with the teardrop and the red smile.

The bathroom had a window, too, so I opened it, climbed onto the thin ledge, feeling very much like I was about to fall. Imagine trying to walk around the rim of a flowerbed fence (you know: the stone walled kind?) and then add right in the middle of it another wall. Now try and make it about thirty feet in the air. That's what it was like. Oh, and now add level three earthquakes. Now you have an accurate picture. Well, I finally made it to the ladder and climbed down quickly, relieved when my boots landed on solid ground.

Hopefully Harley and Mr. J were okay, but I was worried. Just the short run over to Aiden's place had left more mangled bodies than Aiden's stomach could handle. Thankfully, he turned around before he threw up, and didn't get any of it on me.

The bodies were even more frequent now, but I tried not to let me think about Harley and the Joker among the bodies and tried to run even faster.

I searched the steel mill, finally finding Harley tied to a pole in a backroom, a piece of duct tape across her mouth.

"Harley!" I ripped the tape carefully from her face. "Who did this to you?" I asked while I looked around for something to get the ropes off quickly. I spotted a purple switchblade in the corner and picked it up. Joker, if he ever found out, would probably have a coronary, but I didn't care.

Flipping it open, I slid behind Harley and carefully ran the blade down the pole, the screeching sound making me wince as I ran it just a little faster down the pole. I wasn't sure why the pole was even there, but I was just so relieved that she was fine.

"Where's Mr. J?" I asked as Harley almost fell over from being released. She stood up quickly, looking around, then picking up her blood-spattered bat from the ground nearby.

"He said somethin' 'bout goin' to the movies. We'd better head over there now!" Harley didn't even bother bringing more thugs, so I assumed Mr. J wasn't planning on some big confrontation.

On the way over to the Monarch Theater, I asked Harley something that I had been wondering for a long time. "Harley, when do you know that you're in love?"

"It's kinda hard to explain, P." She looked thoughtful, then added, "If yah'll do anything to keep that person safe, do anythin' they say, and not care 'bout their faults. Why?"

"No reason." I answered quickly. But Harley looked at me closely and after an uncomfortable silence, she grinned.

"Yah look just the way Ah did when Ah talked about Puddin' back when Ah was his psychiatrist. Did yah know anything 'bout that?"

I really didn't know very much, so I let her tell me the story about how she met Mr. J, and I was relieved that we were onto a safer topic than my love life.

Turns out, Harley had won a gymnastics scholarship to Gotham U. But what she really wanted to do was be a psychiatrist with her own line of self-help books and such. Eventually, she wanted to tackle Arkham Asylum, which she did, finally having a chance to work with the Joker. Of course, she nearly broke down in tears when she told me about his rough childhood, and how he was just trying to make the world laugh when he couldn't make his father laugh. I also got the feeling that he sent her a lot of flowers, because in at least two different places, she mentioned that he had given her a single rose.

It was a sweet story, but I now had to weave my origin story with Harley's, and eventually we came up with a few points. I was her estranged sister, Eleanor (My mother's name, though she preferred to go by Nora), who had come back to Gotham and become fascinated by the lifestyle she lived. Thrown in Arkham City along with my sister, I became Pirouette to become a part of her life, which was thrilling and exciting to me.

Unfortunately, Harley has super-strength, agility, and immunity to toxins, thanks to her friendship with Poison Ivy, or 'Red', as Harley insists I call her. That basically means that she looks a little less like my sister now (or I look less like her sister. Your call.). But Harley also promised that after we help Mr. J with his project, we can go over and I can meet Red. I wasn't sure how comfortable I felt calling Ivy 'Red', but I was sure I'd get over that hump when it came to it.

The Monarch Theater was a dump, but it used to be the crown jewel of Gotham in the 1970s and 1980s, and I could see how it used to have that title. Really, when you look past the awful smell of mildew, the broken light fixtures, lack of chairs (all that was there were the stumps of where the chairs had been bolted to the floor) and the all-around dirtiness of it, you feel kind of elegant. I felt like I could walk in during its glory days with my hair twisted up in an ice blue formal gown and just start going all terrorist on the place.

Joker was already inside setting up a bunch of explosives or something when we got there, a sword strapped to his hip. I was about to ask him where he got it when he saw me and grinned.

"Ah, good. You're here. Take those outside and put them up on the program board."

I glanced down by his feet and saw an old milk cart that held a bunch of slide letters, the kind that you put up on theater "Now Showing" boards and such. I was about to ask him what to put up when Mr. J waved to a corner.

I went over there found a ladder, which I promptly picked up, ignoring Harley's less-than elegant entrance. I headed for the door, hearing Harley asking Mr. J, "Isn't it romantic, puddin'? This would be such a great place to have a nice date or somethin'…." Her voice faded, leaving me in the cold silence of the street. I hadn't even noticed that the bombs had stopped, but everything was quiet now.

I hoped Aiden was okay, but that wasn't Pirouette's problem. That was Isabelle's, and I wasn't Isabelle, so I told myself firmly to stop thinking about him. It wasn't my problem. It isn't my problem. I chanted silently to myself. Hopefully this job would be involved enough that I didn't have time to think about my other life.

The streets were a morgue. That is to say, dead. There was nobody around, and I was completely alone. I should have been happy about that, but truthfully, I was just irritated. The ladder was old, rusted, and just plain unsafe. I was clutching onto the front of the sign with one hand while I put the last few letters into place. It would have been a lot easier if there could have been somebody to hold the ladder for me while I took care of the sign. It didn't even make any sense in any way, not even in a funny way. "JOKER THE IMMORTAL" just sounded like the name of a home movie made with photo-shopped flames and obviously manufactured explosions. Not to mention the lack of real talent among the actors, directors, or cameramen.

Finally I finished and hopped quickly off the ladder, taking it behind the movie theater and tossing it as far as it would go, which was about three feet before it landed on the cobblestone street with a great crash. I kicked it again for good measure, then stopped.

Down further in the alleyway was a mass of white and a bundle of flowers. Creeping closer, I could see that it was tape like they use at crime scenes to mark out the victim's bodies on the ground. It was two people overlapping, as if they had fallen on top of one another. The flowers were beautiful roses, and I picked them up to smell them, grinning. Obviously somebody wanted to hurt Bruce Wayne badly. They had set up a crime scene from his parent's murder and left the roses here to taunt him.

I threw the roses back onto the ground in contempt. I didn't even really like roses, except for white ones. Personally, I like ones that are poisonous plants. I'd have to visit Ivy to ask her what the prettiest poisonous flowers were. She probably had some great ideas, being half-plant and all.

I entered the back door of the theater, and got to the auditorium, only to see Harley stomping out the big doors at the front of the theater, slamming them shut behind her. I followed, running to catch up to her.

"Wait up!" I called, skipping into a brisk walk beside Harley, but she hardly noticed me, just muttering under her breath.

I caught the words, "Who does she think she is?" and "Kicking me out? Hah! Ah'll show heh."

"Who're you going to show?" I asked, confused. I hadn't seen anyone in the theater, but I assumed that the Joker was doing something in the prop room or something. Maybe he needed another woman's help, which would be kind of weird, since he had both Harley and I to help him if he needed a woman's touch. Actually, he had Harley for stuff like that. Really, I knew more about guns and weapons of mass destruction than how to say tactfully that a suit made him look fat. Heck, I don't think anything could make the Joker look fat. He's as skinny as a twig!

"That upstart Mistah J brought in!" Harley burst out, swinging the theater doors open as far as they would go and letting them almost slam on me. I caught one with a grunt. It was a lot heavier than I thought it had any right to be. I pushed it a little further forward and let it swing closed behind me as I ran to catch up with my fuming sister.

"She thinks she's so cool just 'cause she has some swords 'n a cool accent. 'N when she ordered me out, puddin' didn't do anythin' to stop heh!"

I grimaced. The last thing Mr. J needed was a catfight between this woman, whoever she was, and his girlfriend. Trying to calm down Harley wouldn't be easy, but I needed to do it to make sure that she didn't get skewered.

"Harley, I know you're upset about Mr. J using another woman, he told me that we needed to keep a lookout from the top of that building over there." I pointed to the one across the street. Hopefully that would keep Harley from going at that woman's throat and let us help Mr. J, too.

Harley followed me up the staircase, grumbling all the way. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't nice. At least she was using her words instead of her bat. Actually, I take that back. She was hitting the metal banister whenever we got to a landing, making the black railing ring painfully, bouncing off the cinderblock walls and back into my ears, making me screw my face into a grimace and fight the childish impulse to plug my ears or clap my hands over them.

At least it was only ten stories.

When we got to the top, we sat in the cold wind, not really saying anything for a bit. Our breath made ghostly puffs with each exhalation. The wind was whipping around, blowing my hair in all directions, though the ponytail kept it from getting into my face.

I noticed Harley was shivering and looked at her sympathetically. I didn't really know what cold was too cold, but probably camisoles made out of leather are not the best winter wear. I slipped off my leather jacket and handed it to her. I was glad that it went so well with the Pirouette outfit, and therefore could be worn with it. Harley took it gratefully and pulled it on, zipping it up against the wind.

It fit her perfectly, but was still a bit big on me.

"Thanks, P." I shrugged, then went back to watching the entrance across the street.

"It was nothing. I don't get cold nearly as quickly as you do."

"Well, if yah don' wanna talk abou' that, wha' 'bout that boy?"

My cheeks flushed. "What boy?"

"The one that's tryin' ta win yah heart. Come on, tell ol' Harl his name. I'm still a psychologist. I could probably tell yah whether yah two are a good match."

"Aiden. I fought off some muggers because his screams were disturbing me."

"Alrigh'. Righ' off the bat, why did yah save him? He seems like kinda a weaklin'."

I told her everything about our relationship, the first kiss, the second, his declaration of love, everything.

By the time I finished, Harley was shaking her head. "Iz, as much as I hate to say this, yah need to dump him. He's just too good for you."

I gave her a hurt glance and she backpedaled. "I mean that he's gonna just be extra baggage, and he has that pesky conscious. Who wants a boyfriend that tells yah yah're not doin' the right thing? Dump him. 'Sides, you don't really love him, do yah?"

I mulled over her question. True, if Aiden knew about my criminal activities, he'd try to change me. Of course, there was also the part about liking his kiss. I asked Harley about this, and she shrugged.

"So he's a good kisser. So what? You, girl, deserve better. I think I can introduce to some cute guys that work for Mistah J. I bet plenty of them are good kissers. And think of it this way: he's yah abandoned puppy." Not only was this a weird analogy, but also it reminded me of what I thought my dad thought of me as. The Christmas puppy.

Searching for words, Harley asked me to give her a minute. Then she finally looked up with a grin. "He's just so pitiful that yah want tah feel sorry fo' him, but yah don' love him. Just stop visitin'. He'll give up. The Creeper stopped chasin' me aftah a while of keepin' awah from him."

"The Creeper?" I asked, wanting to hear another one of her tales about the run-ins with other rogues and such.

Harley's story was very creepy, pun intended. The Creeper was a guy named Mike Engel who Joker first poisoned with laughing gas then pushed into a vat of toxins that turned his mind to mush and his skin yellow, with bright green hair and a plume of red feathers (at least, that's what I gathered from Harley's description. She isn't very articulate when something's hard to describe.), with an old-fashioned swimsuit bottom: different shades of green stripes. Apparently, he fell in love with Harley, or at least developed a crush, and followed her everywhere. Batman, surprisingly, was the one to stop the Creeper. Harley had no idea where he was, and didn't want to know.

"As long as he keeps awah, Ah don' need tah know wha' he is." Was the way she put it.

I stood up when she finished the story and walked away from the edge, doing a backbend into a bridge, then doing a back walkover. I turned around and did the same thing again, finally starting to do some pushups.

A fly hit me on the ear, and I shook my head. Then a pebble hit my forehead and startled me. I missed my next contact with the ground and fell flat on my face. I glared at Harley and almost yelled at her when I saw her motioning frantically for me to be quiet.

"What?" I mouthed, and Harley began gesturing for me to come over to the edge. I came over and sat next to her. Batman was entering the theater right below us! Harley got up and I grabbed her arm, pulling her back into a sitting position.

That's when I remembered something that had been mothering me for a while but couldn't put my finger on. I turned excitedly to Harley.

"Joker's looking tons better now! Did he get the cure from my dad?"

Harley squirmed, looking uncomfortable. "That's tha thing. I can't remembah. I got the cure, but then I don't remembah anythin' after enterin' the steel mill. Puddin' looks much bettah now, so Ah assume he got it. Ah just woke up all tied up like when yah found me. So he mustah gotten it somehaw."

I was exhilarated. Joker was going to be fine! There was nothing to worry about anymore. Of course, Harley didn't remember him getting the cure from her, but he looked so much better now, that he must have gotten it from Harley before her memory lapse and whoever tied Harley up got to her.

Below us, Batman entered the Monarch Theater, and Harley and I stood up, leaping down the stirs three at a time, gathering outside the theater, his goons congregating around us when we got there.

"Hey, what's up with the Bat?" One of the goons yelled, standing near the building across the street, wearing a red nose and badly applied clown make-up. Seriously, it's like when you put on too much eyeliner and end up looking like a raccoon. Basically, imagine a raccoon-man who got a dose of Joker Toxin, and you've a pretty good idea of what he looked like.

"The Joker's inside, kicking Batman's butt!" Another thug called out. Slowly, a crowd gathered, until there was about twenty of Joker's men gathered with Harley and me outside the theater.

Suddenly, there was a huge explosion that shook the ground, and caused Harley and myself to fall over, both of us landing heavily on two different goons who had fallen just a second ago when the blast sounded.

"You don't have to fall over somebody to get their attention, honey." The goon smirked as he picked me up and stood, putting me gently back on my feet. Brushing myself off, I nodded once to him. "Thank you." I said politely, then socked him right in the nose.

"That was for flirting with me." I said, smiling in a mildly amused way as he howled and grasped his nose. "Next time, be a gentleman without the attitude, and you might get a polite reply."

Suddenly, there was another huge crash. Not one that swept us off our feet, but one that hurt my ears, and judging by the number of people who clapped their hands over their ears, I wasn't the only one.

Actually, it was more like the sound of a huge metallic structure scraping on concrete. Whatever it was, it was loud. Like, outdoor concert loud. I was surprised that Joker and Batman hadn't passed out in there just out of the loudness of the noise. It must have been one heck of a battle. A much fun as it would have been to go in there and watch, Harley was nervously twisting her glove in such a way that it looked really painful. As much as I hated to admit it, Harley needed me more than the Joker did at the minute. Besides, the Joker hadn't died yet, and he had been in more fights with Batman then I could count. Really, I just wanted to see him kick Batman's butt. Harley looked genuinely stressed out, like she was close to a mental breakdown.

I grabbed both her hands and pulled them away from each other. She looked down, surprised that she had been doing anything at all.

"Hey, Mr. J's gonna be fine." I reassured her.

Harley gave me a grateful smile, looking a little more relaxed. I kept one eye on her, though, and noticed that she was still rubbing her hands together rhythmically. I wasn't sure why she was so nervous, but she was making me nervous, like just before a big event how you feel like there's nothing in your stomach and it's just going to fly away.

Suddenly, the doors opened, and everyone let out a cheer, yelling for the Joker and Harley smiled, almost laughing in relief before the figure came into the early morning light.

I gasped, and the cheers died around me. The figure in the doorway was not Mr. J. Instead, Batman soberly came out of the doorway, carrying the Joker's unconscious body. But something wasn't right. He was too limp, and a quick scan confirmed it. Joker, the first person that I had a connection to beyond Harley was dead.

Batman kept walking, passing in between the members who parted to let him through and passed us so closely that I reached out and touched his head, and tufts of his green hair came out in my hand.

I couldn't believe how fast he'd deteriorated. His face looked brown and blotchy, the veins sticking out from his face like a hose on a driveway. A crude analogy, but you get the idea. His hair was falling out, and he looked as if somebody had run him over with a truck.

Batman didn't look much better: his cape had rips all over it, his body armor holes, he was bleeding from a cut in his right arm, and he was covered with mud. I was betting he hadn't slept in days, and another quick scan confirmed something else of great importance. He wasn't sick anymore. Somehow, he'd gotten the cure and had killed the Joker.

Harley fell to her knees and began sobbing. I dropped beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, feeling rage, anger, and grief coming off both of us in waves, choking me, making me feel like I was drowning underneath a tsunami. The men looked around, obviously uncomfortable.

An awful thought occurred to me. If they didn't feel like there was a strong leader, they just might up and leave. So I glared at them, burying my emotions for just a few seconds and forcing the words out.

"What are you standing around for? Follow the Bat and see where he's going!"

Relieved to have something to do, the crowd quickly moved along, leaving behind a shaking and sobbing Harley Quinn and me, shocked and numb, but was slowly losing that disconnected feeling. I hugged Harley tightly, squeezing my eyes shut tightly and letting the tears and sobs out, feeling the wet tracks tracing down my face like melting icicles.


	10. Harley Quinn's Vengeance

It had been quite a few weeks since the Joker's death, and I was still having trouble sorting out my feelings. I had missed my appointment to meet Robin on top of the ACME building, and had raced up there to find out he had already left. Actually, I was kind of glad that I didn't have to talk to him right now.

Aiden and I had had a chat, where I told him plain and simple that I was going to stop coming entirely. He seemed rather shocked and upset, in fact, he actually started yelling at me, but I stood my ground, thinking of all Harley's advice and effectively broke it off, and I think I broke his heart in the process, not that I cared. He left for the place where they were accepting inmates that were ready to be transferred after that.

My dad was actually a little more preoccupied now, and I noticed Mom standing in the corner where I had never seen her before. I supposed that he had moved her there for more tests, and didn't question him when I came home, which was basically only during the daylight hours when I would sleep. Almost every minute beyond that was with Harley, trying to help her cope.

But it wasn't easy. Harley didn't bleach her hair again, instead letting it go dark brown and then dying the ends black and red again. She also started wearing a widow's black veil and changed the make-up that we all wore to a pale white that you could barely see (or tell it was make-up. On Harley and myself it looked like we were vampires.) and turned the black around the eyes into a running look that basically made it seem like we had been crying for hours and letting the make-up run, which in my case and especially Harley's, was true.

She changed the henchman's costumes to a make-up style reminiscent of the clown Perriot, bright white with red frowns and black eye make-up and teardrop shapes right underneath both eyes (and I'm talking actually connected to the black eye make-up, not just on the cheek), and now they all wore black and red with diamonds in those colors, too.

I did change my look a little more than Harley deemed necessary. I took the blue teardrop on my cheek and got my hands on some of those body jewels that you can find in costume stores and found a teardrop-shaped sapphire and used that. Also, I dulled my lips to just a maroon or wine color, and stuck with just the lips, instead of to my jawbone, like before.

When one of the thug's wrote over the sign that read "Joker's Funhouse" and made it "Harley's Funhouse", she actually broke down crying and shot him in the head. After that, when the police started to gather around the steel mill after she escaped their custody, she put a bunch of banners up with slogans across them like "LEAVE US ALONE" and such.

A few hours ago, she kidnapped some cops and put them under my charge, to my great delight. They were tied up and put in a room in the warehouse of Sionis Industries, locked up behind door that Harley seemed determined to protect at all costs. That's where I was set up to watch the cops.

And that is where I pick up my narrative, standing against one wall, polishing an acid green switchblade that had been part of Joker's private stash, which thankfully Harley hadn't even known was his. I obviously wanted to remember him, too, but Harley flew into hysterics whenever somebody touched something that was his. I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure that she had the signs of a mental breakdown.

I had left the officers' mouths ungagged so I could have a conversation, but they kept on calling me some pretty unpleasant things, before I made one of them eat soap. That shut their mouths to any more insults.

"It's so quiet in here. Come on, can't we just have a conversation? I mean, there's nothing that says just because you're my prisoners that we can't have a nice chat."

One of them, Officer McCarthy, replied. He's a cute cop with long, curly black hair and hazel eyes. I call him Goldilocks, which he pretty much hates, but hey, what could he do about it?

"Why would we want to talk to you, anyway? And who are you?"

I sighed, flipping the knife shut. This was the hardest part about being new to the Rogues gallery. Nobody knew who you were and you had to tell everyone who you are and what your gig is.

"I'm Pirouette. Harley's little sister. Anything else you need to know? My favorite color? My mother's maiden name? Whether I'm dating somebody right now? Blue, Chancellor, and no. Don't ask me again." I had completely made up 'Mom's' maiden name, but I doubt they were going to try and find out whether I was telling the truth about that. Really, who would remember that, and try to see whether I was really telling them about something as trivial as my 'mother's' maiden name?

"Two crazies in the same family?" Officer Jackson, a fat cop with black skin and an almost stupid amount of bravery, laughed. I call him Indy, short for Indiana Jones. "What are the odds?"

"Now, I'd watch you you're calling crazy. Anyone in here could be called that, just by spending a long enough time surrounded by people like us, who see what we want and strive to get it. Nobody ever understands geniuses."

"Well, those who 'strive to achieve' normally end up getting a mouthful of concrete from the Bat." The third of the five cops, Officer Mandarin, ironically an Asian cop with no accent whatsoever, boasted. Personally, I think he likes it that I call him Jackie Chan.

"Well, last time I saw the Bat, he was getting his butt kicked by some ninjas. I think he's a bit busy at the moment."

This announcement didn't really have a lot of force, especially since these cops had a lot of faith in Batman, and also because I knew in the back of my mind that I really had last seen him carrying Joker's limp body out beyond the walls of my city. And that that was two or three weeks ago. Really, he had had plenty of time to heal from any cuts and bruises he'd gotten during his fights against my people. Now I also will say that Two-Face and a couple others don't really constitute as 'my people', but I'm sure that a few other them got some hits on the Bat, and I wasn't about to be splitting hairs over who got the first punch on him, just as long as he stayed down.

"So…" Officer Mandarin shifted uncomfortably. "What's your story?"

I stared at him for a minute. Somebody actually wanted to know how I became who I am today. It was kind of mindboggling. Nobody had ever actually bothered to ask before.

"You really want to know?"

"Hey, we're not going anywhere until Batman gets here." Officer Mandarin shrugged. "Might as well find out about the latest crazy in the bunch."

I slid onto the rail and looked at him hard. He really did want to know. He wasn't just trying to distract me while the others tried to cut their ropes or anything like that.

"Okay. I'm Eleanor Quinzel. But please, just call me Pirouette. Or any combination of that name. My dad and mom got divorced when I was a toddler, and my sister Harley and I haven't seen each other for oh, what now? Eight, ten years? Anyway, I found out my sister and came here. Found her and her boyfriend, Joker, and have found an exciting lifestyle that I'm never gonna leave. I followed them in here and made myself a reputation, but now Gotham's going to have its reckoning day when Harley finally snaps. Not that I want her to or anything, but we both know its only a manner of time."

I suddenly slid off the rail and got into Officer Mandarin's face. "But this doesn't mean we're friends, okay? I'm just here watching you guys until Harley finishes crying." I flipped open the knife, and watched Officer Mandarin's eyes look down towards the blade right under his nose. At least, he was going cross-eyed trying to see it. Now that I actually looked at him, he was really cute, and he was only about eighteen years old. I tilted my head and asked, mostly to myself, the question that was posed to me dozens of times already now.

"Aren't you a little young to be trying to get into my city?"

"Your city?" Indy asked, while Mandarin said, "What about you? Aren't you a little young to be a part of this batch of clowns?"

I waved away Mandarin's question, stating, "I chose to do this with no official consent. The police force on the other hand…"

I leaned in close, pressing the cold steel of my knife up against his cheek. "Are they really so desperate as to let underage boys sign up?"

"Probably it has something to do with the fact that I'm the son of a high ranking officer." He whispered back, smiling at me.

I smiled back, then quick as lightning, slashed him across the face, leaving a shallow cut across his left cheek that began oozing beads of blood, dribbling down his face. Mandarin didn't make a sound, but his breathing did get a little faster.

"Now, really, you should know better than to flirt with a crazy. Haven't you learned anything from Poison Ivy or Catwoman's attacks? It never works."

That's when a squawk came from the harlequin doll in the corner.

I moved quickly over towards the doll and pressed the 'talk' button.

"Yeah, Harley?"

"Get up heeh, P. Now!"

"But – I'm taking the cops' watch right now."

"Well, then ge' someone else to take cah of 'em!"

She turned off the feed and I stared at the doll for a second, then shrugged. If Harley needed me, then the cops would just have to contend with the other henchmen. It wasn't my fault, and truthfully, the thugs were even more violent than I am. They've got this threatening manner about them that makes most of the prisoners so scared they can't talk. They just make these choking sounds like when you start choking on your spit. Trust me, it sounds weird and you're left without any breath, gasping and feeling embarrassed even when you're the only one in the room.

"Change of plans, boys. Sis needs my help at HQ. I'll send in Mister Hammer in here to keep an eye on you. Two if he still has both!" I blew them a loud kiss and picked up my pistol from the table before slamming the door shut behind me.

I managed to find Mister Hammer pretty easily and send him to keep track of the cops and then made my way quickly over to the steel mill on foot, only stopping to pick up a few of the thugs I trusted the most. Surprisingly, there was only a handful that I felt were my special forces. The other ones, well, the Rogues always look for the thugs that go with whoever has the highest paying gig or longest life span. Come to think of it, it's really not all the surprising actually that there are only a couple of them that I actually trust.

Anyway, they like going by the names of Rambo, Chuckles, and Johnny Boy. I really don't know what they really look like because of the heavy make-up that they wear, but I do know that Rambo and Chuckles are about twenty, and Johnny Boy is even younger than I'm supposed to be: fifteen. I think he came to the gang as part of a contract his dad set up. Gang protection in exchange for his arms. But when he died in a shoot-out with the GCPD, Johnny Boy had to come and keep the contract.

Ended up getting thrown in here. But I have to say, he's a good sniper and took some kickboxing classes, so he can actually duck and dodge, unlike some of the bozos in here. While they don't fall with one blow, they really can't land a punch if you're fast enough. It's kind of embarrassing, actually.

I first met Johnny Boy in a raiding expedition to the outskirts of Wonder City, scrounging anything we could find a few days after Joker's death, in which I mostly ran the operation, since Harley was still in depression over his death. Anyway, one of the robot somehow managed to make itself re-boot and started to attack me. I was trying to block its hits, but have you tried to use your bare arms against metal? It's not very effective. Johnny Boy was able to shoot it in the head with his sub-machine gun. We took plenty of the robots back and Rambo was able to repair them.

Rambo's a thin guy with tattoos on his arms that I think are supposed to be Chinese dragons, but the long-sleeved uniforms that Harley's men wear make it kind of hard to know. Fast and clever, Rambo's not actually a good fighter, but he's a good strategist, and he got a place on my Special Ops team when he got me out of a building surrounded by the police, using a couple of old barrels and a crane that was broken.

Chuckles used to be a professional wrestler, but didn't like the rules about not killing anybody, and came to Joker's gang looking for excitement. His ruthlessness got him a place on my team. He's a heavy hitter, but can be kind of an idiot at times. Really, I think he gets picked on by Harley more than anyone else. Well, she calls a lot of her men idiots or stupid, but I think Chuckles just has autism or something. Maybe he doesn't think it's worth it to laugh at jokes, because he's pretty articulate when he's scaring the living daylights out of prisoners.

I met Chuckles during an interrogation of one of the Riddler's guys. The guy that was down there wasn't getting anything from him. Then Chuckles went down there and just stared at the guy. He cracked in ten minutes. Chuckles promptly shot him the head. I was impressed by his skills and took him on a couple missions with me and soon he became a part of my group.

We went up the stairs towards the office where she and Joker used to hold conferences. On our way over to there, we found a TV set up in the corner. I almost gasped when I saw Joker's image on the screen. He was saying over and over again, "You left me to die. You left me to die. You left me to die."

We stood there and looked at it for a few minutes. Then Chuckles leaned over and whispered to Rambo, "I knew it was gonna happen some day. Quinn's finally cracked."

I whirled on him, pointing my finger at him like a mother scolding her young child. "Don't you dare say that in front of Harley!"

Swinging back around, I took a deep breath before pushing the doors open and entering. Rambo, Chuckles and Johnny Boy know well enough to stay outside when I deal with Harley. She's really not a boss that likes to interact with her staff.

"Harley?" I called out, perplexed. The room was silent, and as I walked forward, I heard a clattering noise near my feet. I looked down to see a box. Picking it up, I turned it over. It was one of those pregnancy test kits. There was a negative reading on it, but still, looking around I could see that she'd been checking it often. I picked up a couple of them and looked at them. They all read negative. Then, I found one with a big red positive. I looked at it for a moment, then dropped it with shaking hands.

It clattered to the floor, laying there like an innocent little bomb. I backed away from it slowly, sitting on a plastic chair in the corner. Harley was pregnant? I mean, she was having violent mood swings, but I thought that was just depression or something. Then I noticed the crib.

It was a crib sitting in the middle of the room, with something in it. Almost afraid that this was some horror movie and I was going to get my face eaten off if I looked inside, I approached it slowly, acutely aware of the creaky floorboards and shadows that were all around the crib except for one flickering light right overhead.

I got to the edge and peered in. A puppet was sitting there, Joker make-up applied to it and laying there, almost expectantly of the little terror that would tear it to pieces and burn the limbs. I recognized the doll underneath the make-up. And now I was kind of scared.

It was Scarface, the mob boss. Now, I know it sounds kind of ridiculous that a puppet is a mob boss, but this guy, Arnold Wesker, he's got this weird split personality disorder and one of them becomes the puppet, and Arnold has to do everything it says, even though I think that personality is kind of a wimp. If Scarface found out he was the Joker kid's teddy bear, I shuddered to think what he'd try.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, making me utter a small squeak of fright.

"Who'd yah expect? It's just me." Harley handed me a bundle of clothes. "Put this on, then let me do yah make-up."

I shook out and looked at her disbelievingly. "This is a henchman uniform."

"Yeah? So?"

"I've already got a costume, Harley! Nobody's gonna know it's me!"

"Exactly. I wan' yah to hold ontah somethin' fah me. An' we can't risk yah bein' recognized."

Harley's idea made sense, but I still grumbled as I pulled on the uniform, which unfortunately fit me perfectly. The problem was that I didn't look like myself anymore. I didn't stand out in a crowd, and nobody would recognize me! And the consequence was that I wouldn't get respect. Really, tell me one henchman that respects other henchman; besides my Ops team, I mean.

Harley did my make-up and handed me a card with a few letters on it.

"Take that and go ovah neah the ol' Ferris wheel. An' stay theh. Come back once B-man takes yah out."

I again stared at her. "You want me to actually let the Bat beat me?"

"Yeah. Gotta problem wi' that?"

Really, I did. I wanted to be able to prove that I could stand up to him and at least put up a descent fight (I'm not sure whether anyone's ever beaten him in the long run, but still, it would be nice to say that I had done something more than just standing there and taking a beating.)

But it wasn't any use trying to change Harley's mind about things like this. "No, Harley. I'll do as I'm told."

"Good. An' don't mess this up." Apparently she missed the sarcasm in my statement. But she handed me a key card and told me, "Now, B-man's gonna come lookin' fo' this. Let 'im have it. Then come back heeh."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again, swallowing. This clearly wasn't a good time to ask whether I really was going to be an aunt. I mean, 'aunt'. You know what? It's not important. Let's get back to the story.

Harley almost shoved me out of her room, making me stumble and grab onto a box to keep myself from falling over.

"Hey, Pirouette coming out soon?" Chuckles asked me.

I wanted to call him an idiot, but then stopped when I realized I looked like any other henchman. "It's me, you morons!" At least I didn't call him an idiot.

"Pirouette?" Johnny Boy was looking at me like he couldn't believe his eyes. "You look-"

"Like a henchman?" I interrupted. "Harley apparently thinks that this is essential to her plot. Just remember that we are never speaking of this again. Come on. For some reason, she wants us over at the old Ferris wheel."

I led the way out of the steel mill, but stopped when I saw a bat just lying innocently on top of a conveyor belt. I doubted that the Bat would think anything of taking on somebody with a bat, but Harley didn't want me putting up a real fight (for reasons that I still had no idea what they were), so my knife and pistol really weren't options. I picked up the bat and led the others out the door into the darkening alleyways.

The trip over to where Harley ordered us to was rather uneventful. The only hitch was a truck that somebody had parked right in the middle of the street, effectively blocking the road from being accessed easily.

We were able to climb over it in less than fifteen minutes, but Chuckles and I had to help the others get over, because neither of them had enough muscle to make it to the top of the truck without help. Normally I would've just left them where they were, but we were going up against the Batman, and I needed every amount of muscle I could get, even if both of them together only gave me about thirty five percent of our total muscle capacity.

For that exact purpose, I picked up two other henchman, one with a gun and the other one with nothing but his fists. Though they were quite big fists, I must say.

The little area where we had set up camp was shaped like an L, and if you climbed up onto a bridge over a section of the L, you could see the wheel, which was barely moving, despite the biting wind and the snow mixed with ash.

"Never liked cops. Hope Harley sticks it to them good." One of the other men mumbled to himself, to the rigorous nodding and agreements of the rest of the henchmen.

There was a bit of quiet. The only sounds were the shuddering breaths of the thugs and their arms vigorously rubbing the other in an attempt to stay warm. Even though my breath was leaving clouds of fog whenever I exhaled, I was actually fairly comfortable. Maybe a light jacket or something but beyond that, I was fine.

"Wonder if there are any other bad guys around here. Did they all get moved?" Rambo asked.

I was the one who answered him, much to everyone's surprise (at least, that's what I think; I normally just let them talk and didn't start putting myself in the middle of the conversation.). "Harley in her infinite wisdom has been setting us up this way. I really don't know where they are."

They stared at me for a bit, then one of the other guys whispered to Johnny Boy, "That dude's a chick."

"And this chick is running the operation here." I retorted, feeling stung. I wasn't a 'chick'. I was their boss, and wanted to be treated as such. "You might want to keep your comments to yourself. It's not pretty when I hear things that don't impress me."

Chuckles came over to the guy and whispered something in his ear. I didn't even bother trying turning up my hearing, because for some reason it wasn't working. It hadn't been working for a very long time. My theory was that the further I got from Dad's programming, the less enhanced abilities and such I'd have. I haven't been proven right yet, but I haven't been proven wrong either.

The man's face twisted up in a grimace. I smiled innocently and waved like a girl flirting. He averted his gaze, and walked as nonchalantly as he could over to the far side of the area we were in.

I nodded to Chuckles, silently praising him for putting that guy in his place. Chuckles nodded back to me and strolled over to the group of guys that were still talking. They'd moved past the politics of the villain world and were now on to the weather.

"Is it summer yet? Oh, no. It's just more dang snow." The last man I'd randomly pulled off the street was a whiner, I was sure of that. I looked at him closely, trying to remember all the details about him. I didn't really want him in my gang again.

"Maybe when Harley finishes with her revenge ploy we can get some real coats." Johnny Boy always tried to act like he was just exactly like the rest of the gang members, but the reason I chose him was because he was different. I could pick up the stereotypical henchman anywhere, but Chuckles, Rambo, and Johnny Boy were different. They were special. Kinda like me. I thought to myself quietly.

Suddenly, a shadow filled the sky and then Johnny Boy was on the ground, the shadow on top of him.

"It's the Bat!" Chuckles yelled.

"No, duh, Sherlock!" I screeched back, grabbing my bat from where I had put it down while I was stretching myself out a bit in my boredom.

Johnny Boy was out cold, and the others weren't doing much better. Batman was twirling around them, laying enough hits on each of them to keep them off balance. I ran at him, but suddenly my vision went black. I stumbled, shaking the confusion from my mind, trying to figure out what had happened. Then I saw the same thing happen to Rambo. Batman swept his cape right over Rambo's eyes, taking away his vision for a split-second and making sure that he was off balance while Batman took care of the other guys. Impressed, I brought my bat up to my shoulder and leapt at him.

The Batman slammed Rambo and Chuckles' heads together, taking them out in one fell swoop. There were two other guys besides me still up, and truthfully, they were idiots.

Their fighting style was just hitting the Bat, or trying to. Really, he was quick enough that they hardly ever landed a hit. Probably this was the reason that he'd come after them last. My team actually provides a bigger threat than any regular old goons.

Then, Batman suddenly started punching one of them in a barrage of quick punches. He was almost up to fifteen punches when he jumped up and brought his fists down on the thug's head.

He turned around and took the other guys down in one blow.

"Really? I've got to do this myself?" I grumbled as I swung the bat up to my shoulder. I ran at him, swinging it at his head as hard as I could. But Batman had seen me and was prepared. He ducked, and I missed, losing my center of balance and leaning too far forward.

I was trying to correct my mistake, screaming at my muscles to bring me back to a position where I could protect myself. But it was too late. Batman had his hand around my throat and there wasn't any more ground underneath my ground

I thought about kicking him, but that seemed rather childish. My hands went up to his tight, black-gloved hand. He was choking me, the air getting into my lungs wasn't enough to support me for long. I tried to breath deeper, but his hand tightened around my throat.

"The code! Now!" He commanded in a deep and gravelly voice that sounded like it came from a devil.

"And why… should I… give it to you?" I choked out, trying desperately to pry his fingers away from my throat, fighting the weakness that made it feel like just keeping my arms up was a workout like I had never experienced before.

His eyes widened for a second, then narrowed. I saw his fist coming up a second before the pain exploded in the side of my head and my vision went into starburst pattern of white.

"Pirouette? Boss, you okay?"

My eyes opened, then shut against the bright light, which was actually just a flickering streetlamp. A headache pounded on the side of my head that Batman hit, kind of like if you hit your head against a doorpost.

"Hey, I think she's waking up." Johnny Boy's voice broke through the black fog that was keeping the world at a respectable distance until I recuperated from going up against the Bat.

Then suddenly, the fog cleared. I rolled over and quickly sat up, bonking heads with Chuckles. Now my head hurt on the side and on the front. He didn't seem very fazed by it, but I put my hand to my head and glared at him.

"Haven't you ever heard that you shouldn't watch people sleep?"

There was no response. I grabbed the trashcan next to me and pulled myself up, taking a moment to let the world stop turning. My bat was lying on the ground a few feet away in a frozen puddle of water, reflecting the lights and distorted images of my men and I getting to our feet.

"Did you know that the Bat was going to show up? 'Cause you should have told us if you did. Last time he broke my arm." Rambo asked, once again showing his honesty to a fault that got away from him sometimes when talking to authority figures.

"Uh, yeah, Harley mentioned that. But that doesn't mean I have to tell you everything. Do you ask the Joker, or Harley about whether the Batman is going to show up? Is this just because I'm new?"

They didn't answer me, and I didn't expect an answer. I picked up the bat, curling my stiff fingers around the freezing metal.

I looked around. The two other thugs were still out cold, and I wasn't about to wait around for them. I walked slowly towards the smoke stacks that towered over the other buildings in the Industrial District. I didn't care if the others followed me or not, but I was heading back to Harley just like she told me to.

It occurred to me that I was following all of Harley's commands without complaint, kind of like before I reevaluated my relationship with my dad, but then shrugged it off. Harley was my boss in these situations, just like the Joker used to be her boss. She was still my sister, she was just going through a hard time when I wasn't really going to help her by choosing to stand up to her like a punk.

The cold breeze was still puffing, lifting my hair and whipping it around, and the snow was landing in my eyelashes and melting into ice cold drop of water, making blink rapidly and then dissipating into nothingness.

The moon was peaking through the gray-purple clouds, a waning gibbous, and the stars were almost nonexistent in the sky; it was just an expanse of dark blue with dark clouds skittering across the sky.

A particularly strong gust wind blew across my skin, and I took a deep breath of the cold air, letting it out in a deep sigh. It was almost completely silent in the city. Okay, that wasn't true. I could hear men talking to one another, sirens, and machinery clanking together. But it all felt very far away, like the cold had made the world much bigger than it used to be.

Maybe the world will just get so big that Harley and I will stop caring about Mr. J. I thought, feeling another pang of anger and regret, still big enough to choke me and make my heart ache.

It seemed like my best moments were always ruined. Maybe I was cursed. Either way, the other Rogues, Batman, or civilians (I carefully avoided Aiden's name; that was a weak point in my life that I never wanted to go back to), my life's high points always plummeted to the lowest point in my life pretty quickly. But you're only a few weeks old. I reminded myself gently. Maybe everyone goes through this when you're not even a year old. It seemed impolite to ask Harley about it, Dad wouldn't tell me, and there was no way I was going to ask any of the henchmen. It just wasn't done.

The door to the manager's office looked almost like I was a fairy or something and the door was made for giants. I took another deep breath, reminding myself to not get mad with Harley. She was going through a rough time, and if she really was pregnant… well, that would explain a lot more.

I pushed the door open quietly. Harley was sitting on a stool in the corner, cradling that creepy Scarface doll, crooning a song to it, which while I didn't recognize, sounded like a twisted version of "Hush Little Baby". I guess that was rather appropriate, but still. She was my sister, and this was a huge secret to keep from me, or for her to even be doing. It was like she had decided to elope with Killer Croc! Or, I don't know, something else just as shocking!

She looked up when I walked in, gently laying the doll back in the crib where a flood lamp light it up for all to see.

Then Harley turned to me, smiling kind of crazily. "P, yah need to go home."

I wasn't sure I heard right. "What?"

"Yah heard me. Go home. Come back two days from nah."

I started sputtering, but then Harley screamed, "Go home an' don't come back until then!"

Then (to my complete shock), she picked up a trophy sitting on the table and threw it at me. I ducked, and it shattered on the metal desk behind me. I fled, before she could find some broken glass to drag across my face or whatever.


	11. Chapter 10: Curing Joker

I went home that morning frustrated and feeling abandoned. I was sure that Harley hadn't meant to throw that trophy at me, but it still felt like a betrayal. I flopped on my bed, fuming. Then suddenly, it just all bubbled over and I screamed, throwing a piece of ice at the wall, where it shattered into chunks and skittered around until one stopped at my feet, where I kicked it again.

Why was my life falling apart? First I find out my dad is completely and utterly non-existent as a father figure, then my other father/brother figure dies, then my sister starts throwing things at me! What was going on? Was I bad luck or something?

I changed into my prison jumpsuit and flopped onto my bed, closing my eyes, then opening them to the glare of the noon-day sun.

I sat up, a thought having occurred to me while I was sleeping. Maybe it had been a dream I didn't remember (which was kind of scary, because I remember everything else.), or maybe just another thing triggered my inner detective. Mr. J had had me put up a sign reading "Joker The Immortal", right? So why did he say that? He wouldn't have put it up there unless he believed it, and maybe that woman Harley had been so angry about was the one who had told him that he was going to be immortal.

Another thought occurred to me. Hadn't Dad and Batman been talking about somebody who had been alive for six hundred years? I think they mentioned the name Ra's Al Ghul. And if Batman had some experience with the guy, then he'd probably fought Mr. Al Ghul, leading to the assumption that Mr. Al Ghul was one of the bad guys, like me, and therefore would have died a couple times, if he really had lived six hundred years.

I needed to see my dad's sample of Mr. Al Ghul's blood. Then maybe I could find away to bring Joker back. He never stayed dead anyways, but perhaps I could help it along. I mean, it might be years, and Harley needed him now. Heck, I needed him now.

I snuck quietly out of my bedroom, skidding slightly on the icy floor. I let my feet slip and slide around as I sort of skated to the lab. My breath made ghostly shapes in the early morning sun, where it dissipated like a ghost. I wasn't shivering, but it was just a little bit too chilly. Kind of like being in a basement during the summertime with the AC on. A jacket would have made me comfortable, but just the tank top I was wearing made me shiver slightly. It was January now, but it was still a bitterly cold winter. The highest it had ever gotten was forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and that had been while I was sleeping, at around two o'clock in the afternoon (I checked the weather forecast, okay?).

The lights were turned off in the lab, but the computer screens threw blue light around on the floor and the cracks between the blinds allowed a little more sunlight in. I grabbed a rolling chair from the corner and scooted up to one of the monitors. Technically, all the monitors connected to the same computer that Dad had built himself (actually, it could be my cousin. I have some of the same exact parts in my brain!), and as such would be easy to get into.

I opened the drawer underneath the table next to me to find a mouse, then stopped. Dad used touch-screen monitors because he couldn't fit his mechanical paws onto them! I felt like slapping myself on the forehead and whispering, "stupid, stupid, stupid!" but I was afraid of making too much noise, even though Dad was gone. It seemed wrong to interrupt the silence that reined over the house.

I pressed my finger to the screen, and it suddenly blazed with a white light, making me blink. A password was asked for, and it didn't take me too long to figure it out: June5th1973. That was Mom's birthday, and the day they got married. Of course, I tried NoraFries, ChocolateCupcakes (Mom's favorite food) and Uranium, her favorite element. I think the only reason she liked it was the name, but what the heck.

I searched the multiple files on the desktop, finally alighting on one labeled "Clown_Cure". I double tapped it, and a file opened up. My eyes scanned the page until I found another file labeled "DNA". I opened it, and tapped on the first one I saw. It brought up a picture that made me gasp.

I don't know how many of you are genetic specialists, but suffice to tell you that I recognized the strand. It was Joker's, and it was seriously messed up. Pieces were missing from it entirely, while others looked like the DNA equivalent of having acid splashed on them! I shut it quickly, feeling sick.

"Okay, not the right document." I whispered to myself, more to stop me from shuddering more than anything.

The next document made me again wince. I think this one was the Bat's DNA, but it had the same characteristics as the other picture. I again shut it quickly, feeling my throat begin to constrict like after maybe a normal person not used to dead bodies would react to accidentally touching one. then steeled myself for the next one, but that time I closed my eyes and picked randomly.

That time the strand looked different. Not normal, but not acid riddled either. It almost seemed… stronger. Like iron. Maybe this was Mr. Al Ghul's blood. Then I remembered something I had almost forgotten. Back when I had first met Johnny Boy, the day that we went to Wonder City for some old robots, there had been a trail of blood through the streets that seemed to have these characteristics. It wasn't exactly like Mr. Al Ghul's, but a close relative maybe. A sister or maybe a son.

Didn't Batman mention a Talia? If he knew her name and his informant, Oracle, had some knowledge of her, maybe it was Talia's blood spread everywhere. But I didn't have any proof that she had any connections to Ra's Al Ghul. Maybe Mr. Al Ghul's son got hurt and had to be dragged back to their hideout. Talia could be just a flirtatious assassin, maybe a bit like Catwoman.

Speaking of Catwoman, I hadn't seen her in ages. Maybe it was just as well. I always felt a little uncomfortable around her. Maybe because she was so close to crossing the line into heroism. I think the definition of somebody like that is 'anti-hero'. Either way, we were acquaintances, and as such I wouldn't outright try to kill without provocation.

I shut down the computer and went into the kitchen and grabbed some packaged gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. I don't know who was in charge of sending in food, but they certainly weren't the most healthy or least expensive things on the market. I ripped open the package with a loud crinkling sound. I scarfed down the whole package and then drank some disgusting water from the sink that tasted like iron.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I went into my bedroom and retrieved my sack, then retreated to the bathroom and splashed ice-cold water on my face and yanked a wet comb through my hair. Forget about sleep! This called for investigating!

I wrestled my wet blond hair into a ponytail and pulled on my boots, lacing them tightly. The make-up looked even messier than usual, except I took my time sticking the teardrop gem onto my cheek. Wonder City wasn't far, but it wasn't close, either. I filled up a water bottle, shuddering when I thought about the flavor. I also put dried apricots in my backpack and slung it on.

I hesitated by the door for one second, then flung it open, shying away from the blinding sunlight and shielding my eyes from all the reflections off the numerous metal objects on the street. I glanced back and looked at the welcoming darkness inside. It was rather a struggle to shut the door behind me and lock it. I felt exposed and like a fish out of water in the sunlight. The colors were so much more vibrant now.

I looked down at my outfit, appreciating the contrasting and bright colors of it even more, though the ruffled and smocked cropped top was blindingly white underneath the sun. The black of the outfit, like my boots and the capris underneath the frilly harlequin skirt, I especially liked. It was a comforting reminder of the shadows.

Even as uncomfortable as I felt in the sun's broad daylight, I felt like my first night, the feeling of wonder for the way things looked in real life. I walked slowly, looking at the buildings that were a dirty brown in daylight, not a really pretty chocolate color like in the night.

I hopped over a sleeping prisoner (at least, I think he was sleeping), and wound my way along the litter-strewn streets. If I thought the night before had been quiet, it was like the difference between a completely silent street and cicadas – thousands of them – doing their mating calls. It was like a ghost town during the daytime, and for it being about forty or fifty degrees, I felt strangely hot. I guess how somebody would feel at about eighty to ninety degree weather with a really strong sun.

A breeze blew, lifting my hair and whipping the loose hairs into my face, stinging slightly. It felt good, drying the drops of sweat on my forehead and neck. Then a noise and movement up ahead startled me, making draw my pistol (personally I like my knife better, but for long range things, a gun works much better) and aim it in the direction of the sound. But it was only a dirty piece of paper blowing along the tan cobblestones.

I relaxed a bit, lowering the gun. It was like a ghost town in here. Where was everyone? I thought maybe everyone else in Arkham City were taking naps. Maybe everyone else here likes the night more just like I do. Still, it was kind of creepy that the noisy, busy city I knew during the night gave way to this empty, void land during the day.

Oh, well. At least I could hear anyone coming towards me, be it TYGER officer, GCPD, thug, Rogue, or hero. They couldn't help making sounds. My boots clattered against the cobblestones, and the only way to avoid making any noise would be to move slower than a snail and press my feet more softly than a feather landing against a pillow onto the street. Not worth it, and they might stay away if they heard somebody else around here. So I kept my eyes and ears wide open for any sounds, looking around corners before stepping into sight.

Well, at least I didn't have to contend with the Dark Knight. He never came out during the daytime, just like the mammal he'd named himself after. I kicked a pebble, watching it clatter until it stopped against a tent stake.

I looked up, up, up to the top of the red and white striped tent. It flapped in the wind, the grass growing long close to it and waving in ripples. I pulled open the flap and stepped inside. There was nobody inside it, but there were large torches flickering and illuminating the center of the three rings, but the corners were in the dark. I hesitated, then walked into the center ring. I walked around it, looking and running my hand along the rough and chipped barrier.

It took me a few minutes to walk all the way around it. It was really large. I think that an elephant's pen at the zoo was smaller than the center ring.

Suddenly, I heard a loud clack, and a light almost a bright as the sun blinded me. I squinted and held up my hand, while a voice from behind me yelled out, "Ladies and gentleman! I give you… Pirouette!"

As the laughing and cheering started, from stands that were suddenly filled with people, I looked up to a tall tower that looked like an over turned circular popcorn box stood Mr. J with his long purple coat, white frilly shirt, and pinstriped pants. He hopped off the popcorn container and swept off the purple top hat on his green hair and bowed, taking my hand and kissing it. He smiled, turned and spoke to the audience. "Tonight Miss Pirouette will be doing some very unusual tricks for you! First, she'll be fighting our own Black Panthers of India!"

The audience gasped and oohed, though I doubt any one of them knew whether there are even panthers in India. Heck, I didn't even know. But I followed Mr. J to a large cage, and he helped me inside it with all the grace of a perfect gentleman, though he was throwing to a pack of hungry cats.

He closed the cage behind me with a clang. It was a big cage and rusty, as if it had been out in the rain a lot. I heard a low growl from the shady corner and could see a pair of eyes looking at me, glinting in the firelight. I took out my knife. My gun would be too quick for a show. Though normally that would have been my first choice, plus it was much more fun to see them bleeding on the ground from a knife wound than with a small bullet hole in their forehead. Much more entertaining.

A snarl rang out from the corner and the lithe creature came far enough forward for me to make out its gleaming coat from the rest of the darkness in the cage. It wasn't much bigger than a Great Dane, but a whole lot more aggressive, its teeth glinting white as it pulled back its lips for another growl.

I started circling it, keeping a safe distance from the beast, acutely aware of the soft sand underneath my feet that would keep me from moving as quickly in the arena. The big black cat started circling me, too. Then it suddenly coiled and pounced past me, or rather, at me. It missed by a margin of inches, and I stuck my knife right where it had thrown itself, leaving a long cut that started bleeding drops of blood.

The cat yowled, raising goose bumps on my arm. I sliced wildly, landing various other small cuts on the big animal. Then suddenly, there were growls and snarls all around me. I looked around wildly, my heart rate picking up as I counted the pairs of hate-filled eyes ringed around me.

At least a dozen of them. Did Mr. J honestly think I could beat them all? Well, at least I'd give the audience a show. Wiping my knife in the sand and then polishing it on my skirt, I went into a fighting pose, waiting for the first one to come streaking at me.

There was a pause while they all watched, waiting. Then one leapt at me, obviously tired of waiting. I waited until it came close enough for me to make the death leap. It took a powerful jump that I stooped under, like dodging a dodge ball. Then I reached up and caught the ball, slicing right between the ribs all the way to the hipbone. It's a lot harder than you think it would be to cut through so much flesh.

The shadow cat crumpled, maybe not dead, but out of the battle for a bit. Okay… at least eleven left. Oh, wait. I forgot about the first one. That makes twelve.

Then they were all leaping at me one after the other and my breath picked up until I was gasping for air while I sliced and diced (or at least tried. Those cats were fast.) at the animals. I think I may have hit a few of them, but then something slammed into me.

I was facedown in the sand, a panther on top of me, dripping blood onto my neck. Its claws dug into my arms that it had somehow got both of them in a death-grip. Then, suddenly, there wasn't a panther. There was a woman wearing an ornate ski mask (at least, that's what I found the closest comparison to). Claws weren't restraining my arms. A thin piece of fabric was wound expertly around my hands and forearms, my knife gone. The fabric bit into my hands and rubbed uncomfortably as the woman dragged me to my feet.

I blinked and looked around. The hallway was splattered with blood and the lights flickered weakly, coughing to life for a few seconds then dying back into blackness, but I could see in the few moments of light a couple more people just lying on the ground, a pool of blood around them. There was even one who looked like her stomach had been ripped open.

I had a mixed feeling of pride, and bemusement. I did that? I was shoved roughly forward and almost tripped over a loose cobblestone in the path. I was thoroughly confused and mulled it over while the woman in the ski mask pushed me around corridors and through echoing chambers.

I wasn't even sure how I got in there. Did someone slip me a hallucinogen when I wasn't looking or something? I thought back to the circus tent. I really wanted to go back there… everything I had wanted was there, and it was so much fun. But I closed my eyes several times and couldn't get into my Wonderland again.

My vision suddenly went black. "Hey!" I yelled, struggling. There wasn't any response except for another rough shove. The struggling didn't do anything but make me loose my balance yet again. I almost fell that time, but the woman holding me grabbed my bound arms and kept me upright.

Even though I couldn't see where we were going, the mental map I was putting together would help me get out of here if I needed to. Fifteen steps, then a left. Twenty-one steps, slight right. On and on we walked, until she stopped me and kicked the back of my leg. I went down onto my knees, and a stinging sensation on the place where they had landed told me I had probably scraped some skin off.

A few whispered tones that I couldn't hear (I was frustrated that my super-hearing had worn off. It would have been useful to hear what was being said.) and the bag was ripped off my head. At first I couldn't see anything. Just an expanse of white. When my vision adjusted, I could see that a man was sitting on a makeshift throne, and a brightly lit – yet still dingy – room. The stones were carefully cut, and shone bluish-greenish in the light, even though it was pretty easy to see in here.

"You are the child who invaded my home?" The man asked. His eyes glowed the same color as the stones, and his hair was brown with streaks of white in the side-burns and where it stuck out from his head to form a rough triangle shape, with a small goatee-thingy to match.

He was probably going to kill me if I wasn't polite, so I replied cordially, "I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was doing." That was completely the truth. I had had no idea I'd been killing the ninjas.

"And yet you managed to severely injure five of my followers."

I fought back the urge to smile. I had done a great job for having been in a dream world at that point. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. They were weak if a child could beat them. Tell me. Zahra says that you fought like demon. Who trained you?"

"Nobody." I had never studied under any one person. It was collective learning.

"Nobody." He raised one brown-white eyebrow. "One does not simply walk in here and defeat my people."

I wanted to say, "No, duh, Boromir." But instead said respectfully. "I learn by watching. I see it once, it's my move. Provided that I can do it physically. I could see Superman lift a building, but I could only imitate the way he did it. I'm not strong enough to lift a building."

"Not many people can do something of that nature."

"Blame my dad. He made me the way I am today."

"The clown?"

I realized that I was still wearing my Pirouette stuff, and even though I had been wearing it when I left, I still blushed.

"No, I'm just part of his crew. My dad is Mr. Freeze."

"Did he help you with your…gift?"

"Well, he built it, if that's what you mean. I'm a cyborg. Basically. I've got a computer for a brain."

"And do we know you're telling the truth?"

I shrugged. "I think I would probably be dead by now if I was lying."

His mouth twitched slightly. "You are correct. But please, a demonstration is in order."

I awkwardly rose to my feet with my hands still tied and faced him. He gestured to Zahra and she, obviously not happy to be doing this did a cartwheel with out touching the ground. The moment I saw it, the cartwheel was being broken down into mathematics then back up into a guide of how to do a no-handed cartwheel.

I shifted my position, then did it, closing my eyes to avoid a disorientation when I stopped. Then suddenly, a flash of silver right in front of my face. My body reacted before my brain did and bent backward like I was doing the limbo. A sword sped right where my neck had been.

"What the heck?" (I actually used much worse words than this, but you get the gist.)

Now Zahra was smiling, swishing the sword back and forth as she got closer. I stepped back again, looking at the man on the throne. He looked perfectly comfortable that I had almost been killed (not that I should have expected anything else) and was smiling serenely as I again almost lost an appendage. There were many different names I was calling him in my head, and a nice old grandfather wasn't one of them.

I took another step back and hit my head on the wall, jarring me into thinking about this strategically. Analyzing her fighting style, I found something interesting. Whenever she swung, she overextended herself a little too much, almost off-balance. But how was I going to get close enough to get pull her over?

I looked up and around. Statues…a throne…a stuck-up idiot watching me almost get killed. Suddenly, there was a huge flash of pain in my shoulder. I yelled/screamed, looking down at the thin piece of metal poking out of my shoulder. Zahra looked like she was holding back laughter as she twisted it in my shoulder. I writhed, trying to get it out of my flesh. It finally slid out, leaving a hole in my white shirt that now had a sticky, shining red stain in it that was only getting bigger as time passed.

Taking a deep breath, I jumped up and slid my bound hands underneath my feet, to protests of my arm. Zahra stabbed again, but now I could get underneath her guard. I dodged and pulled my arms up to protect my chest and stomach while a low slicing kick knocked her off balance. She obviously hadn't been expecting me to make a move injured like that. One foot planted on top of her, I got the other one underneath the sword and kicked it up, catching it and pointing it at her throat.

Slow clapping at the throne made me glance up and glare at the brown-and-white-haired man who had been enjoying every minute of my imminent demise.

"You know, I don't think that was a demonstration. That was more like Mortal Kombat." I pointed out.

He shrugged unconcernedly. "I had to see if you were as good as you said you were. Obviously not."

Angered, I retorted in a sharp tone, "Hey, I won, didn't I?"

"You got injured. It wasn't a flawless win. Show me that you are really part of the Rogues. Prove to me that you were telling the truth."

I looked down at the dark-haired Zahra underneath my foot. She was looking at me with resignation. I watched her for a few seconds, then slashed. Her eyes now didn't see me at all, her glassy gaze still focused on me, not seeing. The blood from the wound spurted, splashing my clothes and skin, the stone, matting her hair and her uniform, silently spreading over the room.

I stopped looking at her and instead gazed up at the man on the throne. "Now can I actually talk to the person that I'm looking for?"

"That depends." He walked down the steps and walked over to me, making me crane my neck up. He was a tall man, and even though I was over five feet tall, I still didn't measure up to him. "Who are you looking for?"

"Ra's Al Ghul. He owes me a favor."

"What favor does the Great Ra's Al Ghul owe a child such as yourself?" He sat down on the throne again, smoothing his peacock-colored robes as he did so.

"Well, technically he doesn't owe me anything. But he promised the Joker a bath in his chemicals."

"You are talking about the Lazarus Pit." It was a statement, not a question.

"I guess so. May I please speak to him?"

"I speak for the Great Al Ghul. I can assure you he never promised anything to the clown."

"But somebody in the League did!" I cried desperately, searching for somebody else that I knew belonged to the League of Assassins. "I think he said Talia!"

The man stilled, his face hardening. He called out in some language I didn't understand. In a few moments, a woman with smooth, tan skin and brunette hair pulled back into a headband stepped into the room. They had a rapid conversation, then the man turned to me. "Come." He started walking away.

I blinked, and suddenly I was standing outside the steel mill, the wound on my shoulder not bandaged, but the blood had dried. I looked around, shrugged, and went inside. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. I could have gotten that wound when I fell from somewhere. Either way, I needed to talk to Harley.


	12. Arkham Asylum's Crazies

The mattress was uncomfortable, at least to a certain extent. I opened my eyes, blinking in the stark light of the fluorescent lamp over head. The bright whiteness of the room struck me as strange, too. I was lying on my side, with a jacket and my arms crossed over my hips.

Suddenly, I noticed how small the room was, and sat up straight. I wasn't wearing just a jacket – it was a straightjacket. Panicking, I staggered off the bed, ignoring the head-rush that left me with absolutely no vision.

My breathing was loud in my ears, and the screams around me weren't helping me regain control of myself. This wasn't just a room, either – it was a cage. I slammed myself against the wall, trying to get out of the straightjacket, trying to get out of the room, anything was better than being in here.

I could feel my heartbeat getting stronger and I was now not only gulping air, but I couldn't feel the air going into my lungs. The room was getting smaller, and I backed into the middle of the room, kneeling in there, trying to make myself as small as possible, praying that the walls wouldn't crush me, which they didn't, but they didn't stop until I could have reached out and touched them.

I don't know how long I sat there, shaking, until somebody came to get me. They stepped in and hauled me to my feet. I was too drugged and exhausted from my panic attack to struggle much. At first when we walked along I was just concentrating on the fact that it was a hallway, not a small room that was a death trap waiting to happen.

My boots clacked on the ground, louder than the rubber-soled versions that the men were wearing. I was looking at the floor, and as such couldn't see their faces, but I noticed that I was still wearing my Pirouette costume, and most likely the make-up also. Since the men had my arms, I couldn't reach up and touch my face to make sure.

We turned another corner and walked down another hallway, me counting the amount of black splotches on the concrete floor, which looked kinda like something they got straight from the floor of Home Depot or Costco.

We stopped and the men let go of my arms. I looked up, only to be blasted full force with water that seemed to peel a few layers of skin off. I got it in my nose and sneezed as soon as the water shut off.

"What the hell!" I gasped, not even caring that I had just cursed.

"We've got to get off that clown make-up somehow." The woman behind the fire hose shrugged.

"I'm not sure whether or not to be offended by that." Was my only response. I hoped I could find a way to get more make-up, because I felt vulnerable without it.

I braced myself for the next round, and it stung a little less than before, but I still was left with my face throbbing painfully, and I was soaked. Then, surprise! They gave me a gray jumpsuit with the numbers 9954 printed on it.

Still not ready for a fight, I pulled it on without complaint and came out, feeling like I'd just been having a really good nap and had just woken up. You know how it is: you feel like you're swaying on your feet, and your eyes feel like they want nothing more than to stay closed.

When they brought out the straightjacket again, though, I did protest a little more.

"No." I backed out of the bathroom and up against the wall right outside it, right in view of everyone. "No, don't make me put that on again." Is it surprising that I was sure I was going to suffocate with that on?

"Oh, come on, sweetie, it's not going to be so bad." I jerked and looked to my side. A woman with reddish blonde hair loosely pulled back in a ponytail was coming closer. She didn't kneel, but I still felt rather dwarfed by her, not because she was particularly tall, but her black pumps had a huge spike heel, and that's what was making her so big.

She came over and gave me a hug, which surprised me, but I didn't pull away. Her white doctor's coat smelled sterile, but her ruffled black top and flyaway red hair smelled like peaches.

"Dr. McCartney!" The two men and the woman that had been preparing me for slaughter (hey, see? I felt good enough to joke) were standing in the doorway, the black man was holding the whitish straightjacket over his arm, and the woman looked irritated and harried.

"Sorry that she bothered you. We'll take her now." The blonde man - the one not holding the jacket - reached for my arm, but I stepped back again, not wanting him to touch me.

Dr. McCartney put her hand on my shoulder and I jumped slightly, startled.

"Let me talk to her first." The team looked skeptical, but backed off.

Dr. McCartney kneeled down now, which looked hard in her gray pencil skirt with the three big black buttons on each side. "Now, what's your name, sweetie?"

I almost said Isabelle, then I remembered who I was, and swallowed that impulse. "Eleanor." I whispered.

"Eleanor, why don't you want them to help you with the jacket?"

"I almost suffocated last time. The walls were closing in on me and I couldn't breathe."

Dr. McCartney smiled, nodding her head, and asked, "Did you ever have trouble with small spaces before?"

"…Yes." I answered after a moment. "But I don't really… I don't –" I was having trouble talking and my breathing was getting faster. I couldn't find the right words! I couldn't-

"Okay, okay, calm down. I'm going to go and talk with Shelby." Dr. McCartney got up and went over to the threesome, standing at the corner of the hallway. I could hear them faintly, but didn't really understand what they said until later.

"Shelby, you need to move Eleanor to another cell."

"Why?" The response was rude, but I doubted the woman cared anymore.

"Because she's claustrophobic, or at least has a hard time in closed spaces. I think it would be better if you put her in the junior's ward. The rooms are bigger there and they have a windowed side, so she wouldn't feel so trapped."

Shelby crossed her arms. "Sarah, I don't think that's a good idea. She's killed people. She's kidnapped cops! What happens when one of the younger people gets her riled up? She could end up killing one of them. What about the Rogue's area? She was working with the clown anyway; she'll fit right in."

"Can you leave the straightjacket off, then? I think she's scared of it."

"Well, if you're right about that, then she should be fine with a smaller room."

"No, but I think she now associates it with her claustrophobia. Just until she gets settled, then you can try one if it's needed. And please keep a close eye on her."

Shelby sighed. "Okay. Killer Croc is about the most dangerous thing there, so it's not hard for it to be made safe. But I'm only taking this from you once. Because I trust you."

Dr. McCartney came back over to me and knelt down again where I was sitting and leaning up against the cinderblock wall. "Hey, sweetie, these nice men are going to take you to a new room. They're not going to put on the jacket again, but you need to do exactly what they say."

I nodded dazedly.

"And if you get scared or something, ask the guards for Dr. Sarah McCartney. I'll help you out if you need it." She gave me one more hug and then stood up and walked away.

The two men came over, and while they didn't touch me, they did stand close to me and kept their hands on what I guessed was either a sedative or a Taser. I walked in between them, not really paying attention to where we were going, but just kind of drifting until we came to a doorway with a blue light across it.

The black guy, who had discarded the jacket in a bin, swiped his cuff over the door lock and the blue lights flickered to a stop. We walked through it and he swiped his cuff again, making the sinister blue glow cast purple shadows along the blackened and grimy walls.

There weren't very many screams down here; it was mostly very quiet except for the conversations across the aisle or from next-door cells. It was shut up when the white guy holding me slammed something metal against the nearest cell door and barked, "No talking!" in the resulting silence.

I kept my head down and kept on walking, sneaking looks inside each one of the cells, which instead of having windowed doors had metal bars for doors. There were a couple of giggles, but the cells were too dark to see who was laughing at me.

They shoved me into a cell, slamming the door shut behind me. I was relieved to see that this cell was big enough that I wasn't going to have another attack. It was scary to feel like you couldn't breathe when there wasn't any reason why you wouldn't be able to.

I looked up to see a square of late afternoon sunshine in the scratched Plexiglas window set up high on the wall. There was a bed with rough-looking gray blankets and thin sheets standing against the wall furthest from the window; probably to discourage people climbing out of it. But if I stood on top of the bed, I could see out the window, but that was enough to make me think twice about escaping through the window. All that was there was a cliff and a two-hundred foot drop at least to the water below.

"Why, hello, there." Two cells down to the left on the opposite side a man with long bangs was looking at me curiously. "Are you the March Hare?"

"Excuse me?" I looked at him closely, confused.

"He's asking if you're supposed to be here." A bored voice called from three cells to my right. "Of course, he could be trying to figure out where you fit into his idea of us all being incarnated being from that ridiculous book he's always carrying around."

"Oh. Um…" I thought carefully before answering that. "I guess I am supposed to be here. I've killed people, but I've always felt completely in control. Does that mean that I'm sane?"

"That depends on who you ask, my dear." The man speaking sounded incredibly smug. "Might I ask why you think you're here?"

"My sister." The sound of my voice echoed confidently around the cinderblock hall.

"Your sister?" He sounded thoughtful. "Let me guess: she put you up to this. Or maybe she's one of us, hmm?"

Surprise showed plainly on my voice as I asked, "Yeah, she is. How did you know?"

"I always know, child." Again, he sounded smugger than the cat that ate the canary. "It's part of what I do. Maybe we could eat together tomorrow at lunchtime, and you could tell me more about your family."

"Uh, okay." I didn't think that anyone would take to me so fast, but hey, what could you do?

I sat on the bed, which strangely wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought. Maybe because my normal bed was in a prison cell, and there really wasn't much difference between that place and here, besides, you know, I couldn't leave of my own accord.

At about seven o'clock (judging from the position of the sun), this guy came and gave us all a bunch of food on trays. I was hungry, not having eaten for more than twenty-four hours, and dug into the food. While not tasting the best, at least it wasn't drive-thru McDonald's or Arby's.

"I wouldn't do that." The man I was talking to earlier called out. "They drug the food to make us sleep nice and peacefully. Keep genius buried underneath the haze of their oppressive rules and regulations, and to do that, they need to keep us, the most dangerous ones, under control."

I stopped eating, debating whether being drugged was worth being full.

Coming to a decision, I called out to the man, "Remind me tomorrow about you. I'm starving."

Sure enough, by the time I had finished the stringy beans, I was feeling dizzy and staggered over to my bed, falling into a sleep filled with red-and-white striped tents, acrobats, jugglers, and clowns.

The next day I didn't wake up until almost noon. I guess that made sense, also, considering I also hadn't slept for over twenty-four hours. The gates rattled, making me jump, rolling out from under the rough, but warm, sheets and landing on the ground with a loud thump.

The concrete connecting with my skull didn't help the major headache I could feel pounding in the back of my head. It beat out a steady rhythm as a guard put his hand on my shoulder and helped me up, keeping a hand on my shoulder as we joined a crowd of colorfully dressed people heading for the grub tent, where Zahra had made a scrumptious meal.

I could smell it from here, a blend of the sunbaked earth and dried, yellowed grass mixed with an Asian dish filled with broccoli, eggs, and rice. The sun, peaking from behind each of the different red-and-white striped tents, cast warm patches among the cool ones that were between the different marquees.

A warm hand slipped around my shoulder and I looked up to see Harley, her hair blonde again, smiling delightedly at me and then looking beyond me, smiling even more widely at whoever was beyond me.

I turned and saw Mr. J, purple suit pressed and yellow cuffs peaking out of the sleeves. He laughed at something, but his laugh was enough to make me laugh myself.

A brutish-looking man dressed as a strong man gave me a dirty look, which only made me giggle even more. He scowled, then looked front again, entering a yellow tent with scarlet accents, where the dirt was cracked and hard-packed and the whole room was bathed in golden light.

Harley swept a bow; her ponytail's bobbing, and allowed me to got first. I grabbed a white porcelain plate with blue etchings like flowers and birds around the edge.

As I neared where Zahra and the rest of the knife-jugglers were serving food, she came over and her brown eyes lit up. She gave me an extra big portion of her fried rice, nodding so that her blackish hair flew in all directions. As I moved along, egg rolls and a "real" fortune cookie joined the delicious cooking on my white plate.

"Ah!" The yellow tent evaporated as someone else put their arm around my shoulders.

I was stuck blinking in the bright lights of a painted cinderblock mess hall, not unlike one you'd see at a school, except all the tables were bolted to the floor and guards were posted at regular intervals all around the room (come to think of it, high schools should have those things).

The person with their hand around me spun me around and then held me in place. A man with brown hair cut short and thin sliver square-framed glasses with intelligent eyes and a bruise on his face that looked bigger than my fist looked at me closely, scrutinizing every part of my face.

"I don't believe you've ever been in the asylum before." He said with certainty that said that he knew I had never been here before.

His voice was strange, unique. He sounded egoistical and geeky at the same time. I think his eyes were green, but it was kind of hard to tell. I looked down to keep from looking into his eyes and realized I was holding a tray filled with food: string beans, a small portion of steak, mashed potatoes, and a cup of water were balanced precariously on a gray dinner tray with a scratched whitish plate.

"Which month has twenty-eight days?" He asked me abruptly, as he led me to a table in the corner, with only a few people sitting around it.

Confused, I asked. "Sorry?"

He repeated himself impatiently, while I sat down on one side and he sat across from me. For being in his early forties, he was rather spry, sliding across the table expertly.

"February." I responded confidently.

"Wrong!" He looked delighted that I was wrong.

"How was that wrong? Oh, wait…" I thought it over. February only had twenty-eight days, but every other month had more than that… "All the months?" I guessed hesitantly.

He laughed and clapped slowly and sarcastically. "Congratulations, you failed."

"But I got it right the second time!" I exclaimed, outraged. I had gotten it right! How dare he say that I failed?

"And normally by now you would be dead." He stuck out his hand. "Edward Nygma, at your service."

"You're the Riddler?" I asked as I shook his hand.

"Ah, so you don't live under a rock!" He sounded delighted, and looked at me over his glasses. "But there must be a reason that you're in Intensive Care."

"Yeah, I hang out with the Joker. So they chuck me in there and throw away the key." I shrugged nonchalantly, then lowered my voice. "Of course, when they find out the Ice Box is my dad, that might attribute to my future visits."

"So somebody else finally wised up to the fact that we're getting older." Mr. Nygma muttered to himself quietly.

"Wait, you have a kid, too?" I asked, double-taking.

"Of course! Do you really think I wouldn't have thought of the fact that somebody else needs to keep asking the easy questions. She's a little younger than you-"

"I highly doubt that." I muttered quietly to myself as Mr. Nygma continued.

"I was thinking of taking her to the New Year's Eve party at the Iceberg Lounge. Maybe you'll meet her there." Mr. Nygma cleared his throat. "But introductions! That over there is Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter." The man who had asked me if I was the March Hare nodded, then went back to shaping his food into the shape of a tea table set with all sorts of odd-looking food. "That's Arnold Wesker, our resident ventriloquist." A nervous-looking man with glasses that you couldn't even see his eyes behind didn't even look up; he just kept on picking at his food.

"He's been a little out of sorts since he lost his doll." Mr. Nygma whispered quietly in my ear. I was betting I knew where Scarface was, but I nodded sympathetically, not interrupting.

"I'm Isabelle Fries, but the doctors know me as Eleanor Quinzel. Let's try to keep it that way, please."

"Nice to meet you Isabelle." He gave me a smile, then nodded at a table in the middle of the room where three teenagers sat, animatedly talking to each other and looking over at us from time to time. "It looks like the small fry are interested in the newest inmate. Why don't you go over and talk to them?"

I think he was dismissing me for a bit, so I obediently got up and went over to join the small group of younger people and not nearly so crazy looking individuals.

"Hi. I'm Eleanor." I didn't trust them with my real name; that was for the Rogue's to know only. "Who are you guys?"

"I'm TJ." The tallest one of the group, a black guy with dreadlocks and purple-y eyes introduced himself. "This is Max, and that's Anna." Max was a brunette guy with tanned skin, short hair in the front but long, side bangs in the front, and Anna had pale skin, golden curls, and deep blue eyes, like the sky at twilight.

"So." Max leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded hands. "What did you do to get thrown in here, and why did that get you a spot with Uncle Riddles and the other nut cases?"

"Uncle Riddles?"

"That's what we call the Riddler." TJ explained, shaking a dreadlock out of his eyes. Deep brown eyes, I noticed. "He hates it, but he's a lot of fun. We play card games, Hangman, anything we can get out hands on."

"Oh."

"So…what did you do?" TJ asked.

"I killed a guy. Actually several guys, but they only pinned me for one."

"Huh." Max scooted away playfully, and TJ swatted him.

"Excuse our friend here. We've all killed somebody."

"But I don't even remember mine!" Max protested.

"And neither does Anna." TJ pointed out calmly. "She stabbed her violin teacher with her bow when she got too hyped up." He added to me.

"And TJ shot his parents and little sister." Max added. "Then set them up like a doll house in his living room."

TJ shot him a glance. "…It was interesting."

"And then, he went to the school," Max continued, getting more and more excited. "And killed an entire classroom and set them up like that, too."

"Yeah, and then I got caught by that stupid police detective, Harvey Bullock." TJ muttered, sinking further into his chair. "I swear, I'm going to set his family up for him next."

"Ah, don't take it too harshly." Max patted his shoulder sympathetically. "I don't even remember feeding that waitress to a meat-grinder."

I nearly choked on my water, I was laughing so hard. "You fed a waitress into a meat-grinder?" I asked, giggling.

"Yeah." He grinned. "Then I dumped the chef into a cement truck. They've got it all on tape, and play it over and over again when I'm in therapy, like it's going to help me regain my 'sanity'." He made quotation marks. "Like that's ever going to happen."

TJ nodded again, his dreadlocks falling into his face again. "When they first opened this place back up, the Mad Hatter escaped that week. Max found a meat cleaver somewhere and hacked the head off his psychiatrist and placed it on the warden's desk."

"And TJ set up all the security guard's on break." Max added. "No, seriously. He called it 'Security Guard's on Break'. I think he just found them all over the place and stuck them in the break room. Unfortunately, none of us have actually gotten out of here yet, but that's gonna change soon."

I sliced off a bit of the tough steak and popped in my mouth, talking around it. "Were you guys in Arkham City?"

"Nah. We were all at Williams Medical Center for various amounts of time, but the asylum was already open again when we got sent here. You?"

"Yeah. My dad kinda refused to leave when they turned it into a gang war's no-man's land. Then the crazies come along, I try to help out and… boom!" I snapped my fingers. "I end up getting sent here. Of course, I used to be in what I think is Arkham East, but then I had a panic attack that one of the doctor's said was claustrophobia and they put me in Intensive Care, because there are bigger cells in that wing. That's why I was talking to Mr. Nygma."

"Call him Uncle Riddles. Everyone does." Max speared a string bean on his fork, waving it around and flinging water as he continued, "I think I could convince my shrink to let me go to the Rogue's common room. Maybe I could meet you guys there."

"Wait a second. You said that you play games with Mr.- I mean, Uncle Riddles – all the time. Why aren't you guys in the Rogue's common already?"

"Uncle Riddles sometimes gets enough good behavior stars or points or whatever you want to call them that he can come to the regular common room, and once TJ here," Max nudged him playfully. "answered a riddle correctly and so did Anna, he felt we were worthy enough to play some mind games. Most of the time he wins, but when he loses," Max chuckled. "it's fun to watch."

I glanced over at the blue-eyed Anna, who was staring at me while she chewed thoughtfully. "Um…" I looked at TJ and Max. "You guys seem pretty in control of your mental faculties. But what about her?" I jerked my head at Anna. "Is she really all there?"

"No, not really." TJ replied. "But she's good at games and stuff, she doesn't speak a lot, though. Oh, and don't make her mad. A guard made her angry and she bit off a finger. I don't think he likes her very much either."

Then, suddenly, a Klaxon sounded, making me clap my hands over my ears. It was so loud that I only just barely caught the last thing TJ told me. "Oh, and watch out for Security Guard Bolton."

"What?" I yelled, trying to understand more, but they were already moving away, heading for a door that presumably led to the Children's Ward in Arkham West.

I looked around and caught sight of Jervis Tetch walking towards a door and I almost tripped over somebody else's foot as I hurried over to follow him. Mr. Nygma (I'm still going to call him that in my head even if the other guys think of him as Uncle Riddles.) was looking around, making sure that everyone in Intensive Care was coming. At least, I think that's what he was doing, because his fatherly face relaxed when he saw me coming.

I was panting and my hair was tangled up by the time I got over to him. Maybe that was easy for everyone else to get out of the mess hall, but that was an experience that I didn't want to repeat.

"I'm glad that you didn't get trampled to death your first day. That's happened a few times, but there aren't very many guards that even try to stop something like from happening." He nodded to the blonde-haired man in front of us, his hair cut short and a burly man who looked like he'd never smiled in his life. "Take Mr. Fisher, for example. I know for a fact that he let one of the less high-profile inmates be killed by one of the more violent of the prisoners."

Mr. Nygma frowned, looking troubled. "I don't know how he got promoted to Rogue's duty, but he doesn't answer any of my riddles, not even the easy ones! Oh, well. He'll have to answer one soon enough. Of course, before the clown's death, he had dibs on Mr. Fisher. I think it was because he didn't laugh at any of the clown's jokes. Oh, well. I guess I'll do it in loving memory."

I got the idea from his expression that while he and Mr. J weren't close, they respected each other.

I looked carefully at Mr. Fisher, because for some reason he reminded of someone. Then I exclaimed in one of those 'ah-ha!' moments. "Hey! He was part of the team that took me into Intensive Care! He has a tight grip." I shuddered at the memory. I had been scared, confused, and grieving for Harley. My heart twisted as I thought of her. I didn't even know if there was any way to bring her back.

"Well, I wouldn't put it past him to get a little close with the female prisoners, if you know what I mean." Mr. Nygma said in an undertone. "Best be on your guard around him."

Suddenly a bit scared, I snuck a glance at the muscular guard. I certainly didn't want him to get the wrong idea.

But before I could respond, a black guy (not the same one who took me to my cell, mind you. This one was older and spoke with more authority) came up to Mr. Nygma and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, seven-seven-five-nine. Dr. Sinner's waiting."

With a dramatic sigh, Mr. Nygma followed the guard, talking loudly as they went. "All right. I'll go and see that imbecile again. She didn't answer any of my riddles! How does she expect me to talk to her if she doesn't prove herself worthy of my intelligence?"

I watched him disappear around the corner, then turned front, sighing inwardly. This was going to be a long day.


	13. Bat's Act of Charity

The next day, early in the morning, the same guard that took Mr. Nygma to see his psychiatrist came to visit me. In an authoritative voice, he spoke to me, saying, "Alright, nine-nine-five-four. Your psychiatrist is ready to see you."

I glanced at his nametag, which read 'CASH'. I leisurely got up, trying to unfold my body from where I had been sitting on the bed.

Conversationally, I asked him, "What's your name?"

"Cash. Aaron Cash. Do I need to repeat myself?"

"No, no." The silence actually made the walk seem less long and boring. Soon enough, we were at a door that looked like it hadn't been painted since Amadeus Arkham had been in charge (in fact, it probably hadn't.). He opened the door and walked me in, closing the door solidly behind me.

My shrink was sitting, not facing the door, but twisted around to look at me when I came in, smiling gently. "Eleanor! Come in, come in."

Dr. McCartney had gotten first dibs on 'treating' me! Her hair is braided in two French braids on either side, which makes her look even younger, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Her eyes were hazel colored and sparkling with life, and she seemed eager to peel back the layers of my mind and find out all my secrets. Well, she wasn't getting in there.

I closed my eyes and opened them to a cloudy day in the circus grounds, Rambo (one of the special effects people) came up to me and said formally, "Miss, there's a reporter here to see you."

Sighing, I put down the Diet Coke that Harley had gotten for me after the last performance and followed him through the tents to where a red-headed girl about my age sat and waited, smiling eagerly. It was probably her first real scoop; interviewing the leader of the circus.

"Please, sit down." She motioned to the hard metal folding chair next to her. Frowning, I narrowed my eyes. The chair melted away and reappeared as a maroon-colored velvet chair from the 1900's, with brass rivets on the front of the arm rests and on the sides of the wing-backs.

I sat down, smoothing the denim miniskirt down over my ripped black fishnet stockings.

"Now, what can you tell me about your parents?" She asked, gripping her clipboard tightly, pen poised over her paper.

"My dad was a really good single parent," I wish that were true. "if that's what you mean. I never even knew that I had a sister for a long time. Then out of the blue, a few months ago, he comes in and says, 'Hey, did I ever tell you your sister was a doctor?' So I set off to find her, and find such a thrill here. I mean, we don't have villains and super-heroes where I live. Ever heard of Chicago? Yeah… there are many 'supers' up there."

Sarah (That's what her nametag said) scribbled madly, her eyes shining with delight. "And how about your mom?"

"Never had one." I shrugged. "But I never needed one. Dad did a great job on his own." Once again, a wish list for my dad to see never. "But enough about me. Tell me a little about yourself."

"Actually, this is about you. Not about-"

"You can't have a friendship without knowing a little about each other." I smiled, earning a smile from the young reporter. I crossed my arms over my t-shirt, which read, appropriately enough, 'The Circus is the Place to Be', with a roaring tiger behind the old circus script.

"Spill." I commanded, throwing her a look. "Tell me about your parents."

"Well, um…" She looked uncomfortable. "I've got a dad, he's a cop." And that just made him the top of my hit list, sister, I wanted to say.

"My mom's a chef, works at one of the really big restaurants." She continued, looking more and more relaxed. "And then there's my little brother. Just joined the police force. Well, actually, we adopted him and let him choose his own last name. He's a real looker." She flashed a smile at me. "But he doesn't really believe love is for him. Maybe if I found a girl for him…" She trailed off, looking rather dreamy.

Then the metal door clanged open and the cloudy day on the sandy ground evaporated. "Time's up." Aaron Cash called, coming forward as I willingly got to my feet and followed him out.

But instead of taking the route back to my cell, Cash instead led me down a new set of corridors. When I asked him where we were going, he merely replied, "The common room." Excited, I walked a little faster, but Cash's strides still kept me from catching up to him.

Finally, we got to the security door, which was basically just an excuse to use the two tons of extra steel that they hadn't used in other places in the asylum, like the engineer had thought, 'Well, this stuff can't possibly go to beefing up the locks in the kitchen, so that none of the psychos can get the knives. I know! We'll make sure we can lock them in the common room instead.'

Cash opened the door and pushed me in forcefully, but not roughly. I did happen to trip over the stoop, putting my hands out in front of me to keep from hurting myself even more. I was starting to get the idea that I was naturally clumsy, but maybe that was just me.

The people looked up when I entered, but then turned their attention to whatever they were doing before afterwards. I pushed myself up and looked around. The room had big picture windows that were no doubt also Plexiglas, a couple of table with fold-up chairs and games in cabinets that were being taken out by various inhabitants. There was an orange couch in the middle of room, facing the TV.

Nervous, I sat down on the couch, playing with the loose, frayed pieces until a tiny hand tapped on my knee.

"Wanna play catch?" A small girl with golden ringlets held out a red rubber ball.

"Err… okay." I got up and came over to a corner, where we both sat down and passed it back and forth for a bit.

"I'm Baby Doll." The little girl said brightly. "Do you wanna be my friend?"

"Um…"

"Eleanor, my dear girl!" Mr. Nygma took my arm and helped me up. "You must come and meet some of the other guests!"

Gratefully, I followed him. As we moved to the other side of the room, he whispered, "Mary Dahl. She has a rare disorder that refuses to allow her to grow. Now she acts like that all the time, even though she's in her thirties."

"Yeah, she seems a little crazy." I snuck a glance back at her, now bouncing the ball against the wall, catching it, then throwing it again.

"Well, according to the law, we're all crazy. But that depends on what type of crazy." He looked around, then pointed at Jervis, who sat in the brightness of a window leading to the soaked grounds (it had rained last night; the thunder woke me up) sipping a cup of tea. "For instance, Jervis over there believes that we're all reincarnations of Lewis Carroll's books about the girl Alice. Just be glad he didn't pin you as an Alice; he's killed every single girl that he believes to be her."

Mr. Nygma now pointed to Arnold Wesker, who sat quietly at a table a few feet from Jervis, playing solitaire. "The Ventriloquist believes that his doll is alive and as such he does everything Scarface tells him to." From his expression, I guessed that Mr. Nygma liked Arnold, but rather despised Scarface. "Me, well, the law believes that genius should be kept away from the general public."

I looked up, and he stared down, looking closely at my face. "And what about you?" He asked quietly.

"Well…" I looked around, suddenly feeling a pang of loneliness. Drake wasn't here, neither were Harley or Joker. Even Aiden didn't sound so bad. I just didn't know these people, and while Mr. Nygma and the other young inmates had been nice, I really didn't feel a click with them. Maybe because the threat of dying or killing at any minute brings people together.

Suddenly, I knew what to say. "Because they're afraid of my sanity, which is different from anything they've encountered in other people. I'm in complete control, but they don't understand that that's sanity. It's not insanity, but it's not their definition of sanity, either."

He laughed, clapping his hands. "Well said! Well said!"

Two weeks passed and suddenly, I just couldn't take it anymore. True, I had made sure that my therapy sessions were more about Dr. McCartney than they were about me, but I was done with being in here. It was like being grounded.

But at the time when this occurred to me, I was in my cell (I should have been in the common room, but, well, Mary Dahl got on my nerves and I ended up breaking her nose) when the door opened. I spun around, only to be shoved up against the wall, an armored hand around my throat.

I couldn't breathe, let alone speak, but the Dark Knight growled, "Where are they?"

"You know…idiot…it's kind of hard… to speak…when you can't breathe." I choked out, trying to pull his hand away from my throat.

He let me go, and I slid down onto the bed, hacking and coughing, while he stood there with his arms crossed, glowering at me.

"Thanks." I said when I could breathe again. I looked up at him, noting little details. His cape was torn like a knife had gone through it. There were teeth marks on his left leg. He was bleeding on his right side from what looked like a shot wound.

It didn't take a genius to come to a conclusion about whom he was talking about. "You're looking for Harley and Mr. J!"

I hopped up, delighted, and spun around in a circle. Harley was alive! She had gotten my message, and Mr. J was back in the game!

Then I remembered who was in front of me and sat down, cross-legged on the bed like a child that was being scolded, back ramrod straight.

"Start talking." He rumbled out.

"Sorry, Bats. I've been here since Bird-Brain brought me here almost three weeks ago. I didn't even know that Harley and Mr. J were still alive."

I didn't get any idea of what he was thinking about, but he pinched his nose as if he knew he was going to regret this later. "Okay. You help me find them, and I'll make sure you get out of Arkham."

Huh? That would make it a lot easier than actually escaping. And then I could maybe knock him out or something and then-

"But no double-cross." Aw, man. Well, at least I knew they would be able to get out on their own.

"…Alright." I agreed. His hand came forward and I flinched, expecting a slap. But his hand was out for a handshake. Hesitantly, I gingerly shook it, following him quietly out of the asylum, silently singing in my head, 'Harley's alive! Mr. J's alive!'

Then I remembered something and stopped dead.

Batman looked over his shoulder. "Forget something?"

"No. Remembered." I shot back. "I'd like my costume back, please."

He rolled his eyes and continued walking. "It's in the trunk of the Batmobile." He called back.

"You think of everything, don't you?" I muttered, struggling to keep up with his long strides.

"No. Just everything you'll ever think of." I missed a stride, my face turning red. Batman wasn't supposed to have heard that.

He lead me out to a sleek black bat-themed car, the top retreating for us both of us to get in. I launched myself up onto the hood, did a spinning handstand and landed neatly in the shotgun seat. Cold metal clicked into place around my wrists, and I looked down to see that I was again in Bat-Cuffs.

"Thanks for the bling, but I'm already taken." I said sarcastically, but he wasn't listening. Instead, he was talking on his radio to Robin.

"You check the abandoned card factory and candy factory. We'll check the theme park." We peeled out of the parking lot with the smell of burning tires and the screech of protesting metal.

"Um, just thought I'd mention I was only with them since February." I said meekly. "And Joker was dead for about two months after that, and I've been locked up for almost a month. It's May now. Just saying, I don't know how much help I'll be."

He didn't respond, so I just sat there, looking at him. The setting sun, which was in between the clouds and the horizon, threw orange light over the Bat's face and mine, making me squint.

We sped west, our faces constantly being blinded by the red sun. I looked up in awe as we passed the huge buildings: STAR Labs, Ace Chemicals, and Wayne Enterprises all towered high above our heads, the windows reflecting the gray clouds and the scarlet sun, plus the other buildings surrounding them.

"You know, Gotham is actually pretty." I commented to Batman, who of course didn't respond. That was all right; I could have a conversation with myself. "But Arkham City is prettier, at least to me. Did you like Arkham City? Ooh… that's right. You were dying at that point." I giggled, watching his jaw tighten.

I chattered on, about everything from his cape's pros and cons to how it felt to be dying, to how the lights of Gotham looked like from the rooftops of Arkham.

With amusement, I watched him slowly lose his temper. On and on, I talked, feeling like a baby bird that just wants everyone to know he's there.

The screeching of the tires warned me too late, and my forehead slammed into the dashboard. "Ow!" I peeled my face from the windshield with a bruise forming. Glaring at the Dark Knight, I sat straight up.

Taking no notice of me, he opened the retractable top and got out. I followed, struggling to get out without the use of my hands. Finally, when I was standing on the ground, I yelled at him. "Um… Bats, I can't really help when you keep me wearing your lovely bracelets!"

He stopped in his tracks, and I swear I could see him taking a deep breath before he came back and unlocked the cuffs. Rubbing my wrists, I skipped to the back of his car and opened the trunk.

Slightly surprised that it was open at all, I almost didn't notice my white ruffled half-shirt sitting on top of my harlequin tutu skirt, black Capri leggings, and black combat boots, complete with white socks.

Gathering up all my clothes, I looked around the theme park, which was more of a carnival than a theme park, for somewhere to change. I spotted a couple of changing stations for the water rides behind me. Batman seemed to be completely unconcerned with me, so I didn't bother telling him where I was going.

Walking quickly over to the faded changing stations, I chose the one in the middle and scuttled in, looking at the bench closely for bugs before plopping my clothes there. The outside of the station was painted like bright blue waves (or, had. It was faded until you could barely see it anymore.), but inside, the weathered boards had no décor whatsoever.

I pulled the jumpsuit off and slipped my t-shirt on. As I pulled the skirt and leggings on, I got a splinter in my toe. Stopping to pull it out, it took me about five minutes to finish changing. Looking in the pockets I had added to the waistband, I noticed immediately that my pocketknife was missing. My make-up was still there, but not much else.

Pulling open the door carefully to avoid more splinters, I looked around for a place to put on my make-up, finally deciding to use the side of the Batmobile for that purpose.

Carefully I spread the white make-up over my face, pausing before making my black eye make-up into a raccoon style (a non-mask, if you will) starburst. The red lipstick was tricky, but I tried my best to only do my mouth.

Finally, I licked my lips and stood up, looking around in the growing darkness for the Dark Knight. Not seeing him, I hopped on top of one of the booths, then on top of a pavilion to look for him, but stopped when I saw the sunset.

The clouds skittered across the orange sky, painted with a paintbrush into pinks, blues the color of Anna's eyes, golden yellows, and puffy whites, all looking like something out of a painting. The wind blew my hair around, sticking in my still-wet make-up.

I pulled my blonde hair out of my face, now looking at the sky above me, which was soft greens and yellows, eventually fading into a fiery orange radiating out from the red sun. Again the wind blew, but I held my hair away from my face and breathed in deeply the smell of the harbor.

The ribbed roof wasn't the most comfortable place to sit, I was afraid that the painting would disappear if I found another place to lie. I simply sat quietly, watching the sun slip silently beyond the horizon, the clouds vanish, and the stars begin to twinkle overhead.

I had just found Orion when a bag went down over my head. "Hey!" I don't know whether this is just me or whether this happens to a lot of Rogues, but I seem to get captured a lot. Then again, so do members of the Bat-Family. That's not uncommon.

The person dragged me down off the roof, albeit carefully, but I felt on edge not knowing whether I was about to plummet fifteen feet. Then came the dragging across the soft sand and pebbles everywhere.

When the clicking of a handcuff around my wrist alerted me to what was happening, I deduced who it was immediately.

Sighing dramatically, I asked in a bored way, "Robin, who told you that I was trying to run away?"

"And you weren't?" He sounded on guard.

"…I might have eventually. I was looking at the stars."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. And I kissed Poison Ivy before I came over here."

Glaring at him through the bag, I ripped it off so that he could see my face. My hair was a mess, and my hand was twisted awkwardly the way I was handcuffed to the car door. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy with him at the moment.

"It's true." I said sullenly.

"Yeah…." He drew it out sarcastically. "I don't normally believe those that suffer from insanity."

"I don't suffer from insanity." I replied immediately. "I enjoy it." I grinned at him fiendishly. "Batman wanted me to help him find my sister. And I can't help him until you let me go. Understand?"

He stared at me through his domino mask, finally sighing. "Okay. But no funny business."

"Me?" I looked at him wide-eyed.

Grumbling to himself, he unlocked me and helped me stand up.

"Alright. Now let's go and find Bats!" I skipped towards the Ferris wheel – a good half-mile away – with eager steps, doing a couple handsprings and cartwheels as we made good time towards the wheel.

The sound of a generator kicking in and all the lights flickering on startled me so badly that I missed my cartwheel and crumpled on the sandy streets. The lights not only flickered on, but continued flickering as a scratched and rather broken record of carnival music started playing through the speakers.

Robin, who'd given a rude laugh when I'd fallen, now stood ready, bo staff out and prepared to knock some heads. Looking around, I spotted an umbrella stand, minus the umbrella, leaning against a food stand that looked like it had been out of business even before the park opened. It would do for now.

I did notice some knives inside the food stand, but I had tried using those kinds of knives before, and they just don't work. Sure, they cut, but they're awkward and hard to use. The handle is supposed to be used with your whole hand, but for combat, you need to be able to hold it in a tight grip and fit your hand comfortably around the whole thing.

I don't know. Maybe that's just my own thoughts. I stood up, gripping the pole tightly. I was pretty sure Mr. J nor Harley would take it easy on me just because I was supposed to be on their side. I was with Robin, which basically meant that I was fair game.

I could imagine Mr. J looking at a video monitor, talking to Harley. 'What's your sister doing down there with Bird-Boy? Oh, well, we'll get to see how fast Ice melts.'

As we made our way down the aisle, I noticed Robin getting more and more on edge, jumping when a piece of paper floated across our path.

"Who's got jitters now?" I joked.

"He's waiting for something." Robin muttered. "I don't know what, but he is."

"That's exactly right, my dear Bird-Brain!" A static filled voice came over the speaker abruptly. "And now you have to find out what I'm waiting for. And hello there, my dear Pirouette! Joined the Bat-Family, have you?"

I grinned, talking back to thin air. "Naw, this is a one time gig. After this, I'll be back in the game!" No need to tell Robin of my idea that Joker would just as soon kill me as look at me (though I'm sure that's what most people would say).

"I look forward to laughing with you again soon!" The loudspeaker cut off, and the night was again filled with the carnival music. Up ahead, the Ferris wheel started slowly spinning, the lights turning on and off in a random pattern.

"Come on." Robin started towards the Ferris wheel. I followed him, fuming. Could he get anymore controlling or annoying?

We made it to the Ferris wheel easy, but nobody was there. It was like he was taunting Robin to try and figure out what he was up to.

Looking around, I found the conductor's panel and hopped up on it, looking closely at it. There were three – no, four – levers. One to stop the ride, one to slow or speed it up, and one to open the car doors. But the last one looked… different. There were little red splotches all over it, and I was willing to bet it was Harley's lipstick. Not sure why she decided to kiss a lever, but I'll take it.

"Hey, Rob, there's an extra lever here!" I waited as he stood up and was running towards me before I pulled it.

"No!" He yelled the moment it moved. Too late. A chute opened up beneath us and we were gone, lost in the dark. I panicked, sliding along without anyway to see where we were going to end up, and it was so small.

I could feel the panic attack coming and tried to calm myself down. The walls are not closing in. You'll be out in a bit. Just breathe. Robin was yelling in front of me and suddenly we both got dumped in a brightly lit corridor. I was too late to stop the claustrophobia attack, but I was definitely trying my best to stop it.

Robin, underneath me, pulled himself out and started yelling at me. "I said not to pull the lever! And what do you do? You pull it! How have you-"

He stopped when he noticed the trouble I was having. I was trying to stop it, trying, trying, and trying…. The walls were closing in; they were going to crush me. I got as close to the middle as possible, breathing rapidly.

And suddenly, I was fine. I looked around. The walls were keeping their distance. Robin was over me holding a syringe. The realization hit me instantly.

"Who gave you permission to drug me?" I demanded.

"How come you didn't tell me you had anxiety attacks?" He countered.

"Look, I have claustrophobia, okay? It doesn't happen in cars for some strange reason, but cells and such have a bad effect on me." Humiliated, I crossed my arms and glared up at him. I probably looked like a child having a tantrum, but I didn't care; it was bad enough for him to see me having an attack, but it was worse for him to know what caused it. I hadn't meant to tell him I was claustrophobic, or prison-o-phobic, or whatever, it just kind of…slipped out.

The cranking of some gears underground was the next sound that reached our ears, right before a wall erupted right in between us. Robin backed away quickly, while I kicked out at the sand, in a successful, but kind of embarrassing attempt at getting far enough away from the wall. It rose until it was the same height as the walls around us that formed a hallway.

"Welcome to another round of Cat and Bat!" Joker's voice boomed over hidden speakers, and from all directions, too. "The object of the game is to find everyone's favorite Bat, which is somewhere in the maze! Clowns find him first, he goes for a swim! Birds find him…. Eh, we'll let him go."


	14. New Happenings

There was a crackling sound and blue light flickered irregularly in the other corridor, along with a thump and groan from Robin. "Ah, ah, ah, Bird-Brain! You've gotta follow the path!" Joker laughed hysterically, and then the loudspeaker broke off.

Joker had electrocuted the walls! Just to check, I tapped it quickly. Nothing happened. Huh. I backed up and took a running leap at the wall, grabbing the lip with the tips of my fingers.

My boots scrabbled for a second, seeking purchase, then grabbed hold of the vertical surface. I pushed upward, getting my body high enough that I hoist myself all the way onto the wall, which was as wide as a regular countertop.

Standing up, I began running along the white, plastic wall and checking out every passageway I passed, looking for the Bat. It didn't bother me anymore on going back on my word to him; I had made a commitment to Mr. J first and foremost.

The lights were standard floodlights like you'd find at a construction site, and the light was harsh and bright. Not that I minded that, but, well, it's a little easier to stay hidden if the lights hardly illuminate a room. I had a theory (or a thought, whatever) that Robin would pull me off the wall and somehow keep me off it if he saw me.

By the way, if you're wondering why I'm not calling him Drake, that because I'm not Isabelle. I'm Pirouette, blood-thirsty sister of Harley Quinn. I'm not Robin's friend, Isabelle's his friend, not me. Confusing, I know. Trust me, it's a lot less complicated inside my head.

The maze was not really all that complicated, and since I could see it from overhead, the processing unit had no trouble telling me how to get to the middle of the maze.

I ran quickly along the wide wall, leaped over a passageway, and stumbled as I landed, the wall giving me barely enough room to stop. Leaning back and forth, my arms waving wildly, I regained my balance slowly. When I was standing steadily on it, I thought to myself, Wow. I hope nobody saw that. Looking around suspiciously, I pretended that nothing had happened and began running again towards the center of the maze.

Hopping into the center, I looked around, finally spotting a pillar that almost blended into the walls, it was so white. I assumed that Robin was somewhere else in the maze and that Batman or else the key to finding him was in the pillar. I skipped over to the cylinder, kicking up the clean sand as I went.

On the other side was a button that glowed purple. I pushed it confidently, stepping back when a panel hissed open and I watched as something blocked the strobe light inside the cylinder. Who puts that inside a pillar, anyway?

It was a robot. An arm shot forward and I processed what was happening right before it did. I scrambled away and the claw smashed into the sand where I had just been standing.

"Mr. J!" I yelled in indignation. Why was he attacking me?

"Sorry, kiddo. We've got to let the Bird have a chance, too, you know."

The monstrous robot – I think it was supposed to be a spider with a red smile and green bow tie – shot out another claw. I rolled away yet again, but it got my foot, dragging me into the air upside-down. It didn't try to rip me to pieces, but it gripped me tightly enough that I wasn't leaving, either. I suddenly regretted double-knotting my shoes.

I just hung there, sensing the blood rush to my head and feeling steadily dizzier because of said blood. Minutes ticked passed, and I crossed my arms in impatience. This was just annoying. I wasn't really mad with Mr. J; I just wish he had found a little more subtle way to tell me I wasn't supposed to win, no matter how much he helped.

Finally, Robin showed up, breathing hard and with several rips in his costume. He was bleeding, too, and there was a large purple bruise on his forehead. Still, he managed to laugh when he saw me hanging upside down from the robot's claws.

"Your boss must still have some humor in him, then." He laughed, striding past me and pushing the now glowing green button.

"I fail to see what's so funny about this." I snapped at him irritably.

"That's because you're the one dangling from a robot, and I'm observing. Ever heard, 'you fall off a cliff, I laugh harder'?"

"…It still doesn't make sense. You and I aren't friends."

"Common sense is the enemy of comedy."

"How droll. But be sure to tell that to the Joker next time you see him." For some strange reason, nothing had happened while we were talking. But now the spider robot came to life and began to walk away, me still in its clutches.

Feeling like something being held by the fingertips of a snooty housekeeper, I was still scowling with my arms crossed when it dropped me in a heap in a small room.

"Pirou!" Something attacked me, and squeezed me so hard I couldn't get any air in my lungs. I swear, I could hear my ribs cracking.

"Harley…can't…breathe." I choked out, and she let me go, smiling broadly. She looked just like when I had last seen her, at the circus. Blonde hair in two pigtails: one with a black tip, the other with a red tip. Biker-gear-turned-henchwoman-costume, and makeup unevenly applied.

The only difference was the bulge in her abdomen. My stomach turned again as I looked at it, but I put a brave face on and threw a joke out.

"Harley! Have you gained a bit of weight lately?"

She grinned, her eyes dancing in the dim light inside the dirty room, a big change from the maze outside.

"Naw, silly! Mistah J and Ah are gonna be parents! Yah gonna be an aunt!" She did a small Indian style dance around the room, then stopped. "Wait! I forgot tah tell Red! Come on!"

She took out a walkie-talkie and talked into it with such a gushy voice that I felt like vomiting. "Puddin'? Me an' P are headin' out for a bit. Is that okay?" I made a promise to not fall in love on the spot. I never wanted to have anyone talk to me that way.

"Sure, sure, Harley. Go on out have a fun time." He sounded pretty preoccupied. I don't think he would have noticed if Poison Ivy started strangling him.

"Come on!" Harley grabbed my arm and literally dragged me towards an ice cream truck that most likely had acid popsicles and exploding ice cream bars stored inside to hand out to unsuspecting children on the street.

Opening the back of the truck (which was styled like a TYGER or SWAT team truck), she shoved me in unceremoniously and started the engine, peeling out of the park at breakneck speed.

Hitting a button on the console, Turkey in the Straw started playing around us, drawing the kids out onto the street, even though it was probably around ten at night. My guess was these were the kids whose parents were never around; they were always out drinking or partying. I grimaced. I know the feeling.

"Uh, Harley?" I called to her, standing up but trying to keep my balance in the shaking van by planting my hands on either side of the bus. "Where are we going?"

"To tha' ol' Rebecca Scary Botanical Gardens, o' course!" Harley laughed out loud, shaking her head. When she caught my questioning look in the rear view mirror, she added, "Red tried to off Rebecca's grandson after he announced they were tearin' tha' place down. Unfortunately, Bat-Brain caught up to her before Markus became plant food!"

Markus Scary was one of the many high-class snobs that hung out at police balls and charity events, picking up any beautiful woman who happened to catch his eye. Yeah…he's gone through five marriages so far. If my memory is correct, he has two daughters: Klara and Janus. For whatever reason, he used a boy's name for his younger daughter.

Klara's nineteen and an aspiring actress and songwriter, and the elegant one of the two sisters. While she only looks pretty and probably is a gigantic snob, everyone who meets her says that she's a really nice girl.

Janus, fifteen, is Klara's half-sister. Klara was two years old when her parents split up, and her mother died soon afterward from a drug overdose. While that seemed to make Klara a more sympathetic character, Janus' parents split after four years and her mother, Glynn Glimmer (I'm not sure why her parents named her this, but I'm glad that at least my dad had the sense of mind not to name me something so… girly.), remarried within the year. Glynn apparently loves her daughter, but doesn't visit her all that much. Ugh, I'd hate to be rich and famous. Multiple re-marriages, lying to keep up a reputation, and just being an all-around jerk.

I may be a resident of an asylum for the criminally insane, but at least I don't lie about my feelings or any of that crap.

A hard turn threw me into a shelf and I saw stars. Blinking them away, I decided it would be best to sit down.

Just as I leaned forward, Harley stopped so abruptly that I flew forward and hit my head on the windshield with a loud crack. Black spots swam and I could feel a splitting headache coming on.

I held my head and glared at my sister. "Do you always drive like a maniac?" I demanded irritably.

"One, Ah am a maniac. Two, since when did yah care?" She flung open the door and jumped out. Crawling through the front of the truck, I awkwardly climbed out to stand next to Harley.

I could immediately see what drew Ivy to the Scary Botanical Gardens. The outside of it had a high wall, made partly of fancy-looking iron wrought fence and partly of low-grade chain-link entrances. There was a fancy overhead sign proudly stating what it was. There were plants and trees towering overhead, higher in fact than some of the buildings surrounding it.

Harley went up confidently and took out a key from a hidden pocket, unlocking the twisted iron gates and flinging them open. The hinges creaked loudly, so loudly I felt like we had broken the sound barrier.

Harley stepped inside like she owned the place. I hung back, unsure. What if Ivy didn't see us together and decided to feed me to one of her humongous Venus Flytraps?

When Harley noticed I wasn't following her, she stopped and turned around, blond pigtails flying. "Well? Yah gotta meet her someday." Without breaking a beat, she continued walking.

Slowly I followed her, like a child that has just had a talking to about why they shouldn't be afraid of a roller coaster and is now being taken onto it just so that they can see why it isn't scary.

I had to admit, the flowers were beautiful. Blue morning glories, curled up for the night. Red, pink, yellow, and white roses in groves. Tiger lilies, nodding their heads over the ivy spread out below their magnificent buds. Then I noticed the white flowers. No…

I ran over to them and brought one of the clumps to my nostrils. There was no mistaking that smell: these were lilies of the valley. Beautiful, delicate white flowers like blue bells, but extremely poisonous. I wanted desperately to pick one, but Ivy would almost certainly feed me to one of her plants if I did that. Instead, I breathed in their scent one last time and left reluctantly, trying to catch up with Harley before it seemed like we were in two separate groups.

I don't think it ever occurred to me that the clown makeup might tip Ivy off. Oh, well. Moving on.

It was hard to see in the garden, but Harley's silhouette was easier to pick out than anything, so I just followed her, my boots scuffing against the ground, which I suddenly realized was dirt. Didn't anyone believe in cement or asphalt anymore?

"RED!" I jumped at Harley's shriek. She sounded like a chipmunk being crushed by a cement mixer.

"Harley!" I hissed, being as quiet as possible as if to make up for her screeching. "Do you think that's really the best way to get her attention?"

"Yup!" She said happily, and continued yelling Ivy's name.

Cringing away from her, I tried to make myself as small as possible. There was no doubt in my mind that Harley was specifically trying to get me killed. Now, I know, I stood up to Two-Face in Arkham City, so why was I so scared of Poison Ivy?

The answer to that comes from while I was in the asylum. Batman, the cops, Robin, even Nightwing came in to help take in all the super criminals (including Two-Face. I was kinda hoping that he'd been killed while he was there. No such luck.), regular prisoners, and insane patients. Not that there were many of the latter left.

Two-Face saw me there and unfortunately recognized me during lunch. I guess he hadn't seen me in the crowd on the way down. Anyway, he leaped at me with an animalistic growl. His hands had been around my throat and he was trying to strangle me. TJ and Max tried to pull him off, but it was like two Yorkshire terriers trying to take a toy from a Great Dane.

Thankfully, William North, one of the nicest guards, had noticed and managed to get Two-Face off of me before anything drastic happened. I still had the bruises from were he had gripped me.

A light sputtered to life in the center of the garden, and Harley and I made our way towards it, and it turned out that the light was glowing from inside a mass of vines that made a kind of hut, where a greenish light emanated.

Harley started running towards it when she saw… whatever it was – it was very clearly not a fluorescent light bulb. Her boots thudded dully on the dirt pathway, kicking up a flurry of dust.

Coughing, I followed her. No breeze blew, and the humidity was high underneath the trees. Though it was only about sixty degrees, I was sweating, and my hair was coming out of the ponytail and sticking to my face, neck, and back; my white ruffled half-shirt had a low boat neck, and my hair was sticking to my skin. Come to think of it, so was my t-shirt.

I was brushing my hair out of my face when the vines wrapped themselves around me, pinning my arms up to my face and my legs together. I froze, not wanting to irritate these plants that probably would react like a boa constrictor if I struggled.

"Um…Harley!" I yelled, and Harley, hugging somebody silhouetted in the light inside the mass of plants (guess who that was?), turned to me eagerly, then looked at Ivy and spoke up.

"Chill, Red. That's mah sis!"

Ivy's head moved sharply, and the plants reacted, squeezing me until I gasped.

"Red!" Harley shrieked.

And suddenly, the plants let go, slithering away. I dropped to the ground (for the second time that night), and just started trying to breathe. I couldn't believe I had had such an attack. I was in a pretty wide-open area, and still the world was spinning and making it impossible to get up.

I was vaguely aware of Harley picking me up and moving me inside. It was dark, except for a bright green light in the corner.

A younger voice, high-pitched and scared, got through the haze fogging my mind. "What happened, Pam? What wrong with her?"

Ivy responded sharply, but I couldn't hear her. The room was significantly smaller than when Harley had first brought me in here. I was starting to hyperventilate, going from having too little air to too much.

Footsteps pattered back through the room, and a pill was pressed into my mouth, then water. Somebody yanked my head back and held my nose and mouth shut, making me swallow instinctively.

It didn't do anything at first, but slowly the walls stopped closing in on me. The sedative that Robin had given me obviously didn't have lasting effects.

When I felt pretty much back to normal, I slowly sat up, only to be tackled by Harley.

"Izzy! Don't yah ever do that again! You scared the crap outta me!"

"I don't have any control over it, okay?" I said irritably, peeling her off of me. "It just happens."

Harley looked at me, then nodded, pigtails bobbing. "Yah have claustrophobia, don't yah?"

I blushed self-consciously. "Is it that obvious."

"To a formah shrink. Don't yah worry. Ivy's got some pills tah help with that."

"I don't think we should hope for too much." A silky voice broke in. It sounded like Catwoman's: sexy, low, a voice that would make men drool. But this voice had power and personality along with it. It just wasn't flat, like Catwoman's had.

Ivy stepped into the light, making me gasp involuntarily. Poison Ivy was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Even though she was, well, green, Ivy had flawless skin with delicate leaf and vines traced all over her body. Her red lips were full and curved into a smile that said, 'Come and get it', her eyes were black with bright green irises that glowed and pulsed slowly. A mass of gorgeous curly red hair tumbled down her back and bounced with every movement she made. I don't think if you looked through all history you'd find someone as pretty as Pamela Isley.

"I'm sorry that my babies attacked you, Isabelle, but neither they nor I knew that Harley had a little sister. And as she said, I have been working on something that will ward off panic attacks caused by phobias and even hopefully neutralize a person to Fear Toxin." She produced a small, oval pill and handed it to me.

It was surprisingly heavy for being smaller than a marble, and the color of a red rose just opening. "What's inside this?" I asked, studying it closely.

"Chamomile, belladonna, and rosemary, among some breeds that don't exist outside my garden." Ivy said proudly.

"Belladonna." It was a statement, not a question.

"Even though toxic, it has been used for medicinal purposes also." She shrugged, her hair rippling. "Most people don't look past what a plant is known for to what it really is. Belladonna is both harmful and helpful. People choose to see the harm in it."

"Is it safe to come in yet?" The voice I had heard earlier asked timidly. A head popped inside, but I couldn't see her face; she wasn't close enough to the light.

"Come on in, Calla." Ivy said calmly.

The girl came closer and was then lit up by the green light, which I realized with a start was coming from a small plant growing up one of those metal deck tables you can get at like Bed, Bath, & Beyond or something.

Calla (I'm guessing that was her name) was shorter than me, but just as slender as me, maybe even as slender as Ivy. Her skin was pale, pale green, almost white, and she had pink hair braided over one shoulder, and her eyes looked just like Ivy's: black with glowing green irises. Her face was soft and innocent, with a light spray of freckles over the bridge of her nose.

She was hugging herself, looking at me fearfully, as if I was a werewolf and about to become a salivating animal and tear her to shreds.

"I don't bite." I told her sarcastically.

"No, but you were screaming and thrashing around earlier." Ivy informed me. "I think you scared Calla."

"I can speak for myself." Calla whispered quietly. She stood up straighter and walked over to me. "Hello, I'm Calla Isley."


	15. New Happenings: Part 2

I nodded, taking Calla at her word.

"Isabelle Fries, adopted sister of Harley Quinn and daughter of Mr. Freeze."

"Ooh, already starting in on the comparison game, are we?" Ivy spoke up. "And sweetie, there's no need to lie. It doesn't matter if you don't have a famous parent; you can still do have a great career."

She thought I was lying! "Ivy, if you don't believe me, touch my hand." I stuck my arm out, looking at it glowed ghostly green in the plant's luminous light.

Ivy raised an eyebrow at Harley, and Harley crossed her arms. I had a feeling they were having a silent conversation that went a little like this.

"Where did you pick up her?"

"Red, since when did you have a sister?"

"She's not my sister, she's my daughter."

"Isn't she a little old to be your daughter?"

"She grows fast."

"So does Izzy."

"Oh, so now she has a nickname too?"

"Red! Just do what she said!"

Ivy heaved a long-suffering sigh and laid a delicate hand over mine. I noticed that her hand felt like a real ivy leaf when you rub it in between your fingers. Her fingernails were the same color as ivy, too.

"…You're cold." Her calm voice had the slightest hint of uninterested surprise.

"My dad's the Icebox. What did you expect?"

"You're…what? Eighteen? His accident happened ten years ago."

"Well, I'm three. Months."

Suddenly her eyes sparkled with understanding. "Cloning."

With my finger I pointed and nodded in agreement. "Exactly."

"Calla is only a little older than you, then. I'd say… what, five months?"

"Six." Calla corrected quietly. Yeesh, if she was any quieter we wouldn't be able to find her in the botanical gardens.

"Right. I started work on her right after Joker's takeover, and gave her a little bit of that TITAN formula." She must have seen my look of alarm, because she actually laughed, a beautiful, tinkling laugh that probably sent chills down anyone who heard it. "If you're thinking about its disastrous effects on the human body, that doesn't happen to plants. Unfortunately, it needs a bit of human DNA to bond to, so I used mine to synthesize a formula that eventually became Calla."

Calla, flushed a little green from the explanation of her origin, looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "How did cloning make Mr. Freeze want to grow a child?"

"I think your mother can explain the tendencies men have to do anything a woman tells them to do; or just take the initiative and try to make them as happy as possible. Dad knew Mom wanted a kid, so here I am."

I spun around in a circle, then bobbed into a curtsy. My skirt twisted with momentum of my twirl and then swung back and forth more and more slowly as my hair fell all down in my face. I flipped my head upward to find an elegant way to make it get out of my face, but it didn't work as well as I thought.

Ivy, most definitely snickering, told us to head into Calla's room if we wanted to talk. Calla led me into a small room that was completely made out of plants. There was a huge leaf against one wall with a pink, fuzzy blanket haphazardly thrown on it.

Another one of the luminous plants stood in a corner, and with a wave of Calla's hand, it began to glow, much brighter than the one in the other room. Oh, and did I mention that this one was also pink? The leaves (or were they petals? It was hard to tell) were a vibrant pink, a magenta mixed with red.

The strange thing was for all the indicators that she liked pink, her nightgown was a too-large football jersey that came down to her knees. It was white with royal blue and gold accents.

"Do you like the Gotham Knights?" I asked, looking at her t-shirt.

"Huh? Oh! Oh, no. But I really like one of the players." Again, she blushed a deep green. "He gave me the jersey, because I said I wanted to support him."

Huh. Poison Ivy, one of the most powerful seductresses in Gotham, had a daughter who blushed at the mere mention of her past or a boy that she liked. It was like the head cheerleader having a little sister who was a total geek.

"Hm." I replied, desperately looking for anything in common. A long silence stretched before I thought of something.

"Oh! Hey, Calla, who was your first kill?"

She looked at me, eyes wide open, horrified. "No one! Why would you even think that?"

"Um…" Because your mother feeds people to giant plants if they disrespect Mother Nature.

"My first kill was just a bullet through the eyes. Nothing too complicated."

"How could you do that to another human being?" She gasped, looking at me as if I was some sort of monster.

"Uh, because it's fun. You've got to try it sometime! It's a lot like skydiving, actually. All that adrenaline, then suddenly, you pull the cord, and poof! You're done."

Calla just continued to gape at me, her mouth open like a fish.

Feeling uncomfortable, I fled the room, and found Harley sitting there chatting with Ivy about the color of her baby's bedroom, when she was going to take them out on their first heist and so on.

"Harley, I'm ready to leave." I interrupted her musings about when to give little J. J. his first gun.

"What? Already?" She looked at me with surprise. "Yah an' Calla didn' get along?"

"I'm not surprised they didn't." Ivy spoke up. "Calla is…unusual in the Rogue's world, to say the least. I've offered to let her feed my plants sometime, but she always refuses." She shook her head in a bewildered way, her hair rippling and catching the green light, which strangely looked really nice. Maybe it's because her skin was already green.

"I don't understand her aversion to giving those murderers what they deserve."

Harley patted her shoulder sympathetically. "I'm sure yah'll figyah somethin' out, Red. But we've gottah scoot. Izzy needs tah get home."

"I do?" I asked, bewildered.

"Yeah, yah dad called us up and asked us to take yah to his place."

I suddenly had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Oh.

"Is somethin' wrong?" Obviously she had forgotten that my dad was never supposed to know about this.

I forced my lips curve into a smile. "No. Just that I forgot Dad wanted me home earlier."

"Well, we bettah be goin' then. See yah later, Red!"

"We should go on a heist sometime!" She called behind us.

"Maybe next time!" Harley called out.

The ride home was just as hair-raising as the one to Ivy's place, but I was in shotgun with a seatbelt on, so I wasn't nearly as bothered by her driving as I was about how each passing minute we were getting closer to home and my father's wrath.

I had no idea how he would respond to me hanging out with Mr. J, but I was sure it wasn't going to be pretty. I wondered if I could sneak in the back window, take off my make-up and change, then Harley and I could come up to the door, and we could act like nothing had happened.

Then again, if I came up to the door with my make-up and everything and then told him that he had given me permission to this, but must have forgotten it, that might work. Yeah, that's what I was gonna do. But that still didn't make me any more eager to get home. In fact, it made me feel even less anticipation.

Feeling like I was on a death march when Harley finally pulled up to the house; a red brick with a white picket fence, perfectly manicured lawns, and a freshly scrubbed pathway.

I forced a smile one last time and hopped out, thanking Harley for the ride. She quickly took out a Sharpie from the glove compartment and wrote her number on my forearm. She could have just given it to me and I would have remembered, but I let her do it. I think it made her happy.

I waved goodbye to her as she peeled out of the neighborhood, most likely waking a few of the neighbors.

Then I took a deep breath and walked slowly up the cement walkway to the white patio on the front of the house. There was a light on in the back of the house. Huh. I guess the guy really doesn't need sleep all that much, or else he was really ticked at me.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the front door. The hallway was dark, but I heard a chair creak just out of sight; there was a room between the dining room and I. Padded feet hurried around the corner. Wait, Dad had to wear a refrigerated suit to get around, right? I should be hearing clanking footsteps and metal rubbing against each other.

Trap came instantly to mind. I went into a fighting stance and waited for the person behind the wall to come around. My foot was moving as the person appeared, but I was not anticipating what they did to the point that I nearly fell over.

They hugged me. Or, more accurately, she. A blonde woman – her hair was the color of gold, and smelled like some kind of flower – had her arms around me and was hugging me. Not like Harley hugged, which left you gasping for air and massaging your ribs afterward, no, this was a gentle hug that surprised me so much that I just stood stock-still while the woman finished her hug and stepped back.

Her ice blue eyes twinkled behind thick bangs and she grinned happily, kissing me on the cheek. "Isabelle! I'm so glad to finally meet you!"

Who was this woman? Why did she hug me? And why in the world did she kiss me?

Seeing my expression, which was both bemused and rather creeped out, her smile faded, and the happiness in her face faded to sorrow. "Your father's told me so much about you. Don't you recognize me?"

Well, my brain was short-circuiting, so, no, even if I had seen her before, I wouldn't recognize her. I shook my head, backing away slowly. There was a knife in my belt, so I could get it if I needed to. I fingered it, waiting for any sudden movements before I stuck a knife between her ribs.

"Honey, I'm your mother. I'm Nora." She opened her arms, expecting me to rush forward. "I'm back."

I sat in the kitchen, watching this woman who claimed to be Nora Fries bustle around the kitchen, getting out peach tea and chocolate chip cookies, while she chattered, asking me questions that I answered numbly.

A warm breeze blew through the room, stirring the papers on the breakfast bar where I sat. The chair was higher than I could stand, as in, my feet couldn't touch the floor. Shut up. It was a bar chair. The floor was the color of caramel, the chairs black with cocoa-colored cushions, and the counters were black marble. I looked wrong in such a pristine environment, with my hair tangled with leaves and dirt on my clothes, make-up smeared on my face, it was a wonder that somebody didn't think that this woman had invited a hobo inside. Or a crazy person, which would be correct.

My hair yanked my head back, and I cried out in pain.

"Sit still!" The woman who claimed to be Nora Fries was attacking my hair with a comb; a hopeless job unless I did it myself.

"Where did you go dressed like this?" Then she muttered under her breath, "Dressed like a stripper."

I blushed scarlet beneath my makeup and mumbled, "Costume party."

"Did your father know about it?" She took my silence to mean no, and sighed exasperatedly. "You know we'll have to talk about this when he gets home."

Almost afraid to ask, I questioned hesitantly, "When will he be home?"

She glanced at an old grandfather clock next to the door leading to what I assumed was the basement. "About thirty minutes. He's working on some new projects with Randolph Research Inc. He's doing so much good for the world. He told me that they're close to getting a cure for brain cancer." She beamed and then she must have realized that she hadn't really completed that thought. "Anyway, he had to work late tonight."

She again yanked at my hair. "What did you do to get it so tangled up?"

"Uh…we played Capture the Flag."

"Did you win?" She asked in the way a parent of a young toddler would ask what they had painted on a piece of paper because they didn't know what to say.

"…Once." I took a cookie off the plate, sniffed it suspiciously, then took a cautious bite. They were still warm, and melted in my mouth. I was pretty sure that they weren't poisoned, because nobody would take the time to make such great cookies just to poison somebody with them. I took another and sipped the tall glass filled with tea, wincing as the woman again pulled at my hair.

"Who was at the party?" She asked, again sounding patronizing.

"Lily Island…" I replied, thinking fast. "Uh, her mom Polly, Haley Queenie… her boyfriend, Jay Giggles… uh, Robin Drake… his dad, Ben… and that's all the people I knew." I didn't add that that was because those were the only people there, because that sounded like a really small party.

"Parents was there?" She asked, sounding relieved.

"Yeah. Ben really got into some of the games we played. He even tied me to a tree at one point."

"What?!" She sounded shocked that an adult would do something like that.

"It's fine!" I tried to reassure her, wishing I hadn't mentioned that. Or made it up, whatever. "We were taking turns seeing how long it took us to get out. I was free in ten minutes, it's no big deal!"

"Parents should never act so stupid in any case." She muttered again.

Feeling uncomfortable, I pushed the chair back and slid off the stool.

"Thanks for the…stuff…but I think I'm going to wait until Dad gets home in my room."

"Up the stairs, second door on the right!" She called out as I ran off. The hardwood ended at the staircase, instead changing into immaculate white carpet. I didn't want to get yelled at for leaving my muddy footprints on the stairs, so I stopped and unlaced my shoes before hopping up the stairs, boots in hand.

The walls in the upstairs hall were a mint green, but I had been sincerely hoping that the woman downstairs had not chosen my bedroom décor. No such luck. The room was a baby doll pink, my bed was white with lacy coverlets, and, frankly, this was a two-year-old's dream bedroom.

I honestly felt like barfing, but I refrained and instead called down to the woman, "Are there any gas stations nearby?"

Her voice came back faintly. "Yes, on the corner by Butterfly Lane! But you can't go there this time of night!"

"Yes ma'am." Totally compliant on the outside, rebelling on the inside. That's the way to play it. The one good thing about my room was that there was a huge maple outside my window, and it was no hard task to take off the screen, set it behind the huge dollhouse in the corner, and climb down it.

The grass was just as short in the back as it was in the front – that is to say, almost non-existent. I ran along the street, which I found out was appropriately named Maple Street. While generic, I loved the colors I had seen on maples in pictures. I couldn't wait for fall to come around. You know, the one good thing about being old enough to do everything you need to without ever experiencing it before it that you can remember the first time. Bet you that you don't remember your first autumn.

The lights on the street were dim, but enough for me to make my way to the gas station, only stopping to knock some old guy out and snatch some quick cash off him. He never saw me coming, and by the time he called the police, I would be back in my bedroom, wreaking havoc on my 'mom's' paradise of a room. Barf-inducing, that's what her paradise was.

The gas station was one of those that you'd never find in New York or in Metropolis. That is to say, it was small, probably owned by the same family since the 1940's. It also was rather beat up and disgusting, but it was also a convenience store, which meant it sold paint. I picked two or three different paint brushes, black, red, white, pink, and blue paint, then found some stencils in the shapes of diamonds.

Putting it down on the counter, the skinny boy with acne and braces, plus bug-eyed glasses gawked at me. I think it was the makeup.

"Hey." I snapped my fingers. "I need these rung up before next year."

His eyes flicked down and he began hurriedly scanning the items. Every couple items he glanced up, then looked back down at his hands. Finally, he finished and I handed him all the money that I'd stolen. There were always stupid people who go out at night.

"Keep the change." I told him, picking up my bag and striding with long steps to the door, looking back at him one more time before pushing the door open and skipping out.

The first thing I did when I got back home was move all the little girl's toys into the closet (which was filled with grown up versions of what mothers like to put toddlers in before they're old enough to dress themselves), and then go find a tarp from the garage. 'Mom' was watching a TV show and didn't hear the rustling of the tarpaulin.

I had fifteen minutes before Dad got home. Roughly around eleven o'clock at night. Grabbing a pencil from the can sitting on a white desk that probably belonged inside Cinderella's castle, I took the stencils and started near the door, sketching diamond shapes onto the light pink wall. I only got about three feet around the room before I heard the door slam downstairs.

Putting my stuff down, I ran towards the stairs, stopped, hesitated, then went back and stuffed all my painting supplies underneath my bed. 'Mom' might come upstairs and see.

Dad was standing in the kitchen (minus his refrigerated suit), locked in an embrace with 'Mom'. They were kissing as if the world depended upon it. Clearing my throat made them break away, and they glanced at me for a moment, then 'Mom' gave him another kiss before whispering in his ear.

"I'll talk to her." He whispered to her, loud enough for me to hear. "You go on up to bed."

She nodded and gave him one last, lingering kiss before passing me, throwing me a soft glance, the kind most people save for pictures of kittens and puppies, before disappearing up the stairs.

When there were no more sounds from upstairs, Dad sternly pointed to a seat. I sat, arms crossed and glowering. Before he could say anything, though, I muttered, "You didn't have to hire some nutcase to become a family."

"That. Is your mother you're talking about young lady." He said sternly.

"Mom is an ice cube at the moment." I shot back.

"I found something that will keep the disease at bay, Isabelle. Stop acting like a child."

"Ha!" I laughed. "I've grown up more with the Rogue's than I ever did when I was learning from you!"

"And that is why I'm forbidding you to go out with them anymore."

"What?! Dad-"

"Isabelle, this is not up for discussion. Your mother wants a normal daughter, not one that's in and out of Arkham and playing with murderers!"

"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to stop asking you to hang out and play Uno, then!" I screamed, tears threatening to spill over.

"That is completely besides the point, Isabelle." He said coldly.

"No, it isn't! I've figured out what I want to do, and you can't stop me!"

"Until you're eighteen, I still have legal control over you. You're barely three months."

"That's a technicality! I'm really eighteen already, Dad! Just let me do what I want! You never cared before!"

"That was before Nora came back to us. You need to be reasonable!"

"No!" The tears were flowing freely now, and I was so angry that I threw a cup at him. He ducked, and it shattered against the refrigerator. "I'm becoming my own person now, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

I fled, ignoring his furious calls to come and pick up the mess I made. I slammed my door shut and fell exhausted onto my pillow, falling asleep to my own angry sobs.


End file.
